"moral
lesson" the critic supposes that it teaches, but to prove logically that it
tells the truth.

The same test of truthfulness by which we distinguish good workmanship from
bad is the only test by which we may conclusively distinguish immoral art
from moral. Yet many of the controversial critics never calm down
sufficiently to apply this test. Instead of arguing whether or not Ibsen
tells the truth about Hedda Gabler, they quarrel with him or defend him for
talking about her at all. It is as if zooelogists who had assembled to
determine the truth or falsity of some scientific theory concerning the
anatomy of a reptile should waste all their time in contending whether or
not the reptile was unclean.

And even when they do apply the test of truthfulness, many critics are
troubled by a grave misconception that leads them into error. They make the
mistake of applying _generally_ to life certain ethical judgments that the
dramatist means only to apply _particularly_ to the special people in his
play. The danger of this fallacy cannot be too strongly emphasised. It is
not the business of the dramatist to formulate general laws of conduct; he
leaves that to the social scientist, the ethical philosopher, the religious
preacher. His business is merely to tell the truth about certain special
characters involved in certain special situations. If the characters and
the situations be abnormal, the dramatist must recognise that fact in
judging them; and it is not just for the critic to apply to ordinary people
in the ordinary situations of life a judgment thus conditioned. The
question in _La Dame Aux Camelias_ is not whether the class of women which
Marguerite Gautier represents is generally estimable, but whether a
particular woman of that class, set in certain special circumstances, was
not worthy of sympathy. The question in _A Doll's House_ is not whether any
woman should forsake her husband and children when she happens to feel
like it, but whether a particular woman, Nora, living under special
conditions with a certain kind of husband, Torwald, really did deem herself
justified in leaving her doll's home, perhaps forever. The ethics of any
play should be determined, not externally, but within the limits of the
play itself. And yet our modern social dramatists are persistently
misjudged. We hear talk of the moral teaching of Ibsen,--as if, instead of
being a maker of plays, he had been a maker of golden rules. But Mr. Shaw