One need not choose between Satan's being a tragic hero or an absurd villain. Either extreme stamps us as a more restricted moralist than Milton the poet. For then we are less able than Milton to admit the test of contradiction into the moral universe of our art. If Satan is a tragic hero, it is because we are not honestly willing to test good by evil. If Satan is merely an absurd villain, it is because we wish to ground our art upon too narrow a certainty; it is because we prefer the idea, and the confirmation of our certainty, to the more comprehensive, and therefore more daring, exploration of human experience—the submitting of an idea to a dramatic structure. If Satan is merely absurd, then we are not willing, though Milton is, to test evil by good.