IBSEN'S PLAYS 729 



have been the right ? The Christianity he knew was rotten. He 

 could not acquiesce in it. But the true way out of it into something 

 better lay forward, and not backward. 



This doctrine is expounded in a jargon which, it must be con- 

 fessed, severely tries our patience by the mystic Maximus. The 

 " Third Kingdom," which is neither that of the Emperor nor that of 

 the Galilasan, and yet is both, which is neither that of the flesh nor 

 that of the spirit, and yet both, neither of beauty nor of truth, and 

 yet both, the " Third Kingdom," the consummation and harmony 

 of its imperfect predecessors, towards which all rebels against what is 

 have dimly felt their way, which none can describe because none have 

 seen the unborn this " Third Kingdom " is to be reached through 

 the past and the present. Infancy has its beauty, which dies, but is 

 not lost when youth swallows it up. Youth has its beauty, which dies, 

 but is not lost when manhood succeeds it. You cannot go back to 

 recover infancy; you must go forward to preserve both it and youth 

 transfigured and embraced in manhood. 



Thus decisively is the reactionary solution of social and religious 

 problems rejected. When the truths that once inspired men have 

 become mere catchwords, salvation lies in an advance which will 

 recover and reincorporate, while transmuting and transforming, their 

 essential spirit, not in a retreat which will attempt to preserve the 

 perishing or resuscitate the dead formula. 



And again : the mere fact of any truth being accepted, recognized, 

 formulated, patronized, enforced, and established, itself tends to make 

 it a lie; for it tends to become a convention instead of a formative 

 power, a tradition instead of a conviction, a profession instead of a 

 belief. Hence Julian's established Paganism has all the vices of the 

 established Christianity it superseded, in addition to its own reaction- 

 ary unreality; and the only vivifying power which his zeal for Pagan- 

 ism really exercises is its purifying influence upon the Christianity 

 which he perscciitcs. In this, and in this only, he" is really effective; 

 for he thus helps to re-invigorate the Christians, and push them for- 

 ward towards the new truths they had ceased to seek. 



Such. I take it, is the meaning of the "Emperor and Galilacan;" 

 and it will be seen how closely it all bears upon the faiths and scepti- 

 cisms, the advances and reactions of our own day; and what a flood of 

 light it throws upon Ibsen's attitude towards all the problems of mod- 

 ern life in the social plays. . . . 



And thus we have come to understand the meaning and the mission 

 of the "poet of doubt," 



Is it not enough after this merely to enumerate the social plays ? 

 "The Pillars of Society," "The Doll's House," "Ghosts," "The 

 Enemy of Society," " The Wild Duck," " Eosmersholm," " The Lady 

 from the Sea," " Hedda Gabler." 



