He appreciated Dorfling's character, his consistency, his strength of will and highmindedness as they deserved, but he was never tired of preaching and demonstrating to Wilhelm that all these admirable qualities had been turned out of their proper course by a disturbing morbid influence.

It was monstrous, he contended, that a system of philosophy should arm you for suicide.

What if the premises should prove false?
Then your voluntary death would be a frightful mistake which nothing could retrieve.

One has no right to risk making such a mistake.

He believed in development, in the progress of the organic world from a lower to a higher stage.