Gorz began writing Fondements in 1946. Ten years and 1500 pages later he delivered the manuscript to Sartre. Gorz's lingering hope that Sartre might use his influence to procure a contract with a publisher quickly receded. But even before this, Gorz recalls, his own interest in the project had begun to flag, and his sense of accomplishment had faded. His creation "had slowly died as he drew near the end, had fallen outside himself', Gorz tells us. His ambitious philosophical undertaking "had given him something to think about for ten years, but these ruminations had not reached him. He was the same as he had been before, with this exception: he had learned to think about life' (T: 36).