Here is another difficulty in trusting to the honor and conscience of a doctor. doctors are just like other englishmen: most of them have no honor and no conscience: what they commonly mistake for these is sentimentality and an intense dread of doing anything that everybody else does not do, or omitting to do anything that everybody else does. this of course does amount to a sort of working or rule-of-thumb conscience; but it means that you will do anything, good or bad, provided you get enough people to keep you in countenance by doing it also. it is the sort of conscience that makes it possible to keep order on a pirate ship, or in a troop of brigands. it may be said that in the last analysis there is no other sort of honor or conscience in existence—that the assent of the majority is the only sanction known to ethics. no doubt this holds good in political practice. if mankind knew the facts, and agreed with the doctors, then the doctors would be in the right; and any person who thought otherwise would be a lunatic. but mankind does not agree, and does not know the facts. 35 select the correct answer. what is the likely purpose of the passage?

Read the excerpt from act 1 of a doll's house. helmer: nora! [goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear.] the same little featherhead! suppose, now, that i borrowed fifty pounds today, and you spent it all in the christmas week, and then on new year's eve a slate fell on my head and killed me, and— nora: [putting her hands over his mouth]. oh! don't say such horrid things. helmer: still, suppose that happened, —what then? nora: if that were to happen, i don't suppose i should care whether i owed money or not. helmer: yes, but what about the people who had lent it? nora: they? who would bother about them? i should not know who they were. helmer: that is like a woman! but seriously, nora, you know what i think about that. no debt, no borrowing. there can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt. we two have kept bravely on the straight road so far, and we will go on the same way for the short time longer that there need be any struggle. nora: [moving towards the stove]. as you , torvald. how does the interaction between helmer and nora advance the plot? nora realizes that helmer will completely disapprove of her having borrowed money, so she has to continue to keep it a secret from him. nora realizes that she and helmer have the same ideas about financial issues, and the conversation brings them closer together later in the play. helmer realizes that nora is more responsible with money than he originally thought, and he trusts her more with finances later in the play. nora realizes that helmer knows a lot more about borrowing and lending, and she will seek his input later when she needs it.