d game of guying the men of
science. It was a very good game, and he was an admirable player. The
actual story of the _Doctor's Dilemma_ itself seems to me less poignant
and important than the things with which Shaw had lately been dealing.
First of all, as has been said, Shaw has neither the kind of justice
nor the kind of weakness that goes to make a true problem. We cannot
feel the Doctor's Dilemma, because we cannot really fancy Bernard Shaw
being in a dilemma. His mind is both fond of abruptness and fond of
finality; he always makes up his mind when he knows the facts and
sometimes before. Moreover, this particular problem (though Shaw is
certainly, as we shall see, nearer to pure doubt about it than about
anything else) does not strike the critic as being such an exasperating
problem after all. An artist of vast power and promise, who is also a
scamp of vast profligacy and treachery, has a chance of life if
specially treated for a special disease. The modern doctors (and even
the modern dramatist) are in doubt whether he should be specially
favoured because he is aesthetically important or specially disregarded
because he is ethically anti-social. They see-saw between the two
despicable modern doctrines, one that geniuses should be worshipped like
idols and the other that criminals should be merely wiped out like
germs. That both clever men and bad men ought to be treated like men
does not seem to occur to them. As a matter of fact, in these affairs of
life and death one never does think of such distinctions. Nobody does
shout out at sea, "Bad citizen overboard!" I should recommend the doctor
in his dilemma to do exactly what I am sure any decent doctor would do
without any dilemma at all: to treat the man simply as a man, and give
him no more and no less favour than he would to anybody else. In short,
I am sure a practical physician would drop all these visionary,
unworkable modern dreams about type and criminology and go back to the
plain business-like facts of the French Revolution and the Rights of
Man.

The other play, _Getting Married_, is a point in Shaw's career, but only
as a play, not, as usual, as a heresy. It is nothing but a conversation
about marriage; and one cannot agree or disagree with the view of
marriage, because all views are given which are held by anybody, and
some (I should think) which are held by nobody. But its technical
quality is of some importance in the life of its author. It is wort