THE MIND OF SHAKESPERE
non-committal, attitudes toward religion and learning and the established professions. The endings of many of his plays and the initial circumstances of others, completely ignore the logic of the plot and of the characters; he is content that the scene should open and close upon artificial situations, but while the story is in motion he vitalizes it with his naïve energy. If he is the greatest of world-dramatists, is he not also the playwright who has taught least to posterity? He did with supreme excellence what had been done before him, but added practically nothing to the craft of the theatre; the modern dramatist goes to other men for technical instruction.
If Shakspere was a thinker, he must have accepted the conclusions of his own wisdom; if he did not know when he uttered wisdom, he was hardly a thinker. It is easier to take the latter conclusion,
[107]
