Ewald had a neat idea. This seemed like the perfect end. Sidgwick’s book had closed with the word ‘failure, so why not complete Parfit’s book with ‘hope’? It was a clever contrast. Parfit was fast asleep and could not be roused—he had disappeared for twenty-four hours—so his two friends took a bold and unilateral decision. They ditched the dull paragraph that followed this one and moved the Nietzsche quotation to an epigraph at the front. By the time Parfit emerged the following midday, Ewald had already walked to OUP with the floppy disk containing the last chapter. Ewald explained what he had done over the phone. There was a long—and nerve-racking—pause. Then Parfit agreed that they had made an improvement.

David Edmonds, Parfit: a philosopher and his mission to save morality, Princeton, 2023, p. 183