hing relevant to the larger issues of
life. That he has done; and it is doubtful if any English-speaking and
English-writing man now alive, excepting Mr. Shaw, could have done it
with any thoroughness.

But having freed us from these old tyrannies of the stage, he has not
rested there. He has imposed new tyrannies of his own which are
sanctioned either by his own extraordinary influence or by that swing
of the Time-Spirit of which he is the visible pendulum. He is very
persuasive, and puts his case so well that he is able to blind us to
false issues. He states his case in the Preface which he wrote to
_Three Plays by Brieux_. Brieux is for him the greatest French
dramatist since Moliere; and more important because whilst Moliere was
content to indict human nature, Brieux devotes his energy to an
indictment of society. "His fisticuffs are not aimed heavenward: they
fall on human noses for the good of human souls."

When he sees human nature in conflict with a political abuse he
does not blame human nature, knowing that such blame is the
favourite trick of those who wish to perpetuate the abuse
without being able to defend it. He does not even blame the
abuse: he exposes it, and then leaves human nature to tackle it
with its eyes open....

You do not go away from a Brieux play with the feeling that the
affair is finished or the problem solved for you by the
dramatist.... You come away with a very disquieting sense that
you are involved in the affair, and must find the way out of it
for yourself and everybody else if civilisation is to be
tolerable to your sense of honour.

All this is unmistakable. Mr. Shaw regards the theatre primarily and
essentially as a substitute for the pulpit, as a convenient
lecture-hall for the propaganda of Shavian socialism. He takes it for
granted that there is to be a social "problem;" that "fisticuffs" are
to be aimed at somebody's nose as they were in those delightful games
of play in which he indulged as a young and earnest Fabian; that the
audience is to come away tuned up to social endeavour just as people
come away from Revival meetings tuned up to the tasks of spiritual
salvation.

This is well enough. Upon two conditions, I agree that there would be
no objection to Mr. Shaw or any other dramatist using the theatre as a
means of reforming men; these conditions being, firstly, that he is
able to do it--which I doubt; and secondly, t