Shaw's treatment of the Salvation Army in "Major Barbara" showed that he knew more about religion than some of his churchly critics. So, too, his defense of the Salvation Army music in the London Standard in 1905 proved that he knew more about music than those who sneered at the Army bands. The Germans, who are now fond of analyzing the English character, have discussed at length the question of why such an unmusical people should have good music in the Salvation Army.[8]
The 125-page preface to "Androcles and the Lion" is devoted to a rereading of the Gospels and a rewriting of the life of Christ. Shaw interprets the New Testament like a higher critic but applies it like an early Christian. He rejects the resurrection but accepts the communism. He believes in the Life Force and Its Superman as others do in God and His Messiah. Shaw's Superman obviously belongs to another genus from Nietzsche's Uebermensch. He says in the preface to "Misalliance":
The precise formula for the Superman, ci-devant The Just Made Perfect, has not yet been discovered. Until it is, every birth is an experiment in a Great Research which is being conducted by the Life Force to discover that formula.
This eugenical and well meaning, but far from omnipotent creator, bears a strong resemblance to Bergson's Elan vital, but Shaw was writing about the Life Force long before Bergson wrote his "Creative Evolution." If there was any borrowing about it, both borrowed from Schopenhauer. But Shaw and Bergson, being kindly men and no pessimists, have put a kind heart into Schopenhauer's ruthless Will.
If I were to sum up Shaw in two words it would be that his distinguishing characteristics are courage and kind-heartedness. The sight of suffering and injustice drives him mad, and then he runs amuck, slashing right and left, without much regard to whom he hits and no regard at all as to who hits him. He is, like Swift, a cruel satirist through excess of sympathy. If Ibsen is right, that "the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone", then George Bernard Shaw is not to be ignored.
HOW TO READ SHAW
It does not matter much which of Shaw's books you read first, for after reading it, whichever it is, you will probably read all the others that you can get your hands on. If I must be more specific in recommending a book to begin on, I would suggest that "Major Barbara", "Man and Superman", and "Androcles and the Lion" will give you an idea of what Shaw is like; then, if you are interested, you can pick out others from the following chronological list in which I have indicated by a few words the theme, scene, or argument of the play and its preface. All Shaw's works are published by Brentano's, New York, three plays in one volume, or separately.
"Widowers' Houses", 1892 (tainted money).
"The Philanderer", 1893 (Ibsenites and esthetes).
"Mrs. Warren's Profession", 1893 (prostitution).
"Arms and the Man", 1894 (Serbian and Bulgarian war; anti-militarism).
"Candida", 1894 (triangle).
"You Never Can Tell", 1895 (farce comedy; the most popular of Shaw's plays on the stage).
"The Man of Destiny", 1895 (one act, Napoleon in an unconventional aspect).
"The Devil's Disciple", 1896 (American revolution).
"Caesar and Cleopatra", 1898 (Egypt Anglicized).
"Captain Brassbound's Conversion", 1899 (Morocco; Raisuli, Perdicaris, et al.)
"The Admirable Bashville or Constancy Unrewarded", 1902 (His novel: "Cashel Byron's Profession" put into blank verse "because it is easier to write than prose").
"Man and Superman", 1903 (romance topsy-turvey; marriage by conquest on the part of the woman; containing "The Revolutionist's Handbook" and interlude on heaven and hell).
"John Bull's Other Island", 1904 (Irish and English temperament contrasted, Home Rule question).
"Passion, Poison and Petrification", 1905 (burlesque extravaganza).
"Major Barbara", 1905 (Salvation Army and munition manufacture; problem of poverty).
"How He Lied to her Husband", 1905 (parody on "Candida").
"The Doctor's Dilemma", 1906 (satire on medical professor and attack on vivisection).
"Getting Married", 1908 (absurdities of marriage laws).
"The Showing-up of Blanco Bosnet", 1909 (Wild West; psychology of conversion; prohibited by censor).
"Press Cuttings", 1909 (anti-militarism).
"Misalliance", 1909 ("a debate in one sitting"; preface on parents and children).
"The Dark Lady of the Sonnets", 1910 (showing how Shakespeare got his phrases).
"Fanny's First Play", 1911 (satire of dramatic critics and middle-class morality).
"Androcles and the Lion", 1911 (early Christians; lion from Oz; disquisition on the canon of the
New Testament and the possibility of living Christianity).
"Overruled", 1912 (philandering again).
"Pygmalion", 1913 (phonetics and class prejudice, with a postscript proving that you never can tell how a Shaw play will come out).
"Great Catherine", 1913 (boisterous farce of Catherine II; contrast of Russian and British temperament).
"The Music Cure", 1914 (Marconi scandal; used as curtain raiser for Chesterton's "Magic", unpublished).
"Three Plays by Brieux", (Brentano's, 1911; contain "Damaged Goods" and other plays in which the French playwright attacks social evils as vigorously and outspokenly though not so wittily as Shaw. They are translated by Mrs. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. Shaw provides a preface).