us endure
all the pagan pleasures with a Christian patience. Let us eat, drink,
and be serious.

The second of the two points on which I think Shaw has done definite
harm is this: that he has (not always or even as a rule intentionally)
increased that anarchy of thought which is always the destruction of
thought. Much of his early writing has encouraged among the modern youth
that most pestilent of all popular tricks and fallacies; what is called
the argument of progress. I mean this kind of thing. Previous ages were
often, alas, aristocratic in politics or clericalist in religion; but
they were always democratic in philosophy; they appealed to man, not to
particular men. And if most men were against an idea, that was so far
against it. But nowadays that most men are against a thing is thought to
be in its favour; it is vaguely supposed to show that some day most men
will be for it. If a man says that cows are reptiles, or that Bacon
wrote Shakespeare, he can always quote the contempt of his
contemporaries as in some mysterious way proving the complete conversion
of posterity. The objections to this theory scarcely need any elaborate
indication. The final objection to it is that it amounts to this: say
anything, however idiotic, and you are in advance of your age. This kind
of stuff must be stopped. The sort of democrat who appeals to the babe
unborn must be classed with the sort of aristocrat who appeals to his
deceased great-grandfather. Both should be sharply reminded that they
are appealing to individuals whom they well know to be at a disadvantage
in the matter of prompt and witty reply. Now although Bernard Shaw has
survived this simple confusion, he has in his time greatly contributed
to it. If there is, for instance, one thing that is really rare in Shaw
it is hesitation. He makes up his mind quicker than a calculating boy or
a county magistrate. Yet on this subject of the next change in ethics he
has felt hesitation, and being a strictly honest man has expressed it.

"I know no harder practical question than how much selfishness one ought
to stand from a gifted person for the sake of his gifts or on the chance
of his being right in the long run. The Superman will certainly come
like a thief in the night, and be shot at accordingly; but we cannot
leave our property wholly undefended on that account. On the other hand,
we cannot ask the Superman simply to add a higher set of virtues to
current respectable moral