# Shaw gives the will a purpose

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P021](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P021/#char=257,311): "Mr. Bernard Shaw has not perceived the real difference"

Shaw's *Man and Superman* offers a useful check on whether his alternative is merely to praise the occurrence of choice. In the Act III debate, Don Juan rejects the pursuit of happiness, but gives life a definite direction: greater consciousness and the capacity to understand its own activity. Blind striving needs intelligence because it can defeat itself. The work first appeared in 1903; the inspected witness is Project Gutenberg's electronic text, updated in 2015, whose displayed title matter does not identify its underlying print edition. [Shaw, Act III, Don Juan's speeches on heaven and Life](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3328/pg3328-images.html).

Read against that passage, Chesterton's logical objection is strongest against *bare* willing elevated into the criterion of value. It does not by itself dispose of Shaw's richer proposal, which already distinguishes blind activity from activity that helps life understand and direct itself. A further argument would have to test that proposed end. Because these are speeches in a dramatic debate, they also should not be treated as an unqualified authorial creed. This is a contemporary comparison, not proof that this particular speech was Chesterton's immediate target.

## Sources

- [Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy, Project Gutenberg eBook 3328](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3328/pg3328-images.html), Act III, Don Juan's speeches beginning 'In Heaven, as I picture it', 'Senor Commander', and 'In the Heaven I seek'

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_ykkrjoxq/