ventional Englishman, who is never so silly or
sentimental as when he sees silliness and sentiment in the Irishman.
Broadbent, whose mind is all fog and his morals all gush, is firmly
persuaded that he is bringing reason and order among the Irish, whereas
in truth they are all smiling at his illusions with the critical
detachment of so many devils. There have been many plays depicting the
absurd Paddy in a ring of Anglo-Saxons; the first purpose of this play
is to depict the absurd Anglo-Saxon in a ring of ironical Paddies. But
it has a second and more subtle purpose, which is very finely contrived.
It is suggested that when all is said and done there is in this
preposterous Englishman a certain creative power which comes from his
simplicity and optimism, from his profound resolution rather to live
life than to criticise it. I know no finer dialogue of philosophical
cross-purposes than that in which Broadbent boasts of his commonsense,
and his subtler Irish friend mystifies him by telling him that he,
Broadbent, has no common-sense, but only inspiration. The Irishman
admits in Broadbent a certain unconscious spiritual force even in his
very stupidity. Lord Rosebery coined the very clever phrase "a practical
mystic." Shaw is here maintaining that all practical men are practical
mystics. And he is really maintaining also that the most practical of
all the practical mystics is the one who is a fool.

There is something unexpected and fascinating about this reversal of the
usual argument touching enterprise and the business man; this theory
that success is created not by intelligence, but by a certain
half-witted and yet magical instinct. For Bernard Shaw, apparently, the
forests of factories and the mountains of money are not the creations of
human wisdom or even of human cunning; they are rather manifestations of
the sacred maxim which declares that God has chosen the foolish things
of the earth to confound the wise. It is simplicity and even innocence
that has made Manchester. As a philosophical fancy this is interesting
or even suggestive; but it must be confessed that as a criticism of the
relations of England to Ireland it is open to a strong historical
objection. The one weak point in _John Bull's Other Island_ is that it
turns on the fact that Broadbent succeeds in Ireland. But as a matter of
fact Broadbent has not succeeded in Ireland. If getting what one wants
is the test and fruit of this mysterious strength, then