What you are asking, of course, is do you think he was capable of committing suicide? It’s a rare quality or, depending on one’s point of view, an unfortunate flaw, but few of us are capable of carrying it out when faced with such a moment of choice. And surely, Smith thought, in most cases it is less to do with moral or religious doubts than with the fundamental, primitive will to live; had Gerald Fitch’s difficulties been such he had lost that?
