Wharton raises the possibility that "Mariana is a spurof-the-moment invention, the mere objective correlative of a plot device" (1989, p. 38), only to dismiss it out of hand: seeking to "put two and two together" to show that in trusting power to Angelo, the Duke "was licensing a man of known ruthlessness and inhumanity," Wharton has come up not with four but with nothing. Despite the obvious verbal echo, the connection between "seemer" and "well-seeming" is too tenuous to bear the weight of interpretation Wharton places upon it (for one thing, as I shall argue, the Duke's "seemers" may not apply to Angelo at all). It is not the case that the Duke "already knows Angelo to be more than 'well-seeming'." Far from having his supposed doubts about Angelo's integrity confirmed, the Duke seems, in this context (3.1.223) as in others, to be genuinely surprised at his deputy's scandalous conduct. "But that frailty hath examples for his falling," he says to Isabella, "I should wonder at that Angelo"
(3.1.185-86). And again in his soliloquy at the end of Act III, the Duke, far from congratulating himself on being right about Angelo's corruptibility, seems taken aback by developments: "O, what may man within him hide, / Though angel on the outer side." If some kind of test has revealed the correctness of the Duke's diagnosis of Angelo's moral character, surely it is here, or in the denouement of the play, that we should look for a reference to such a test, but no such reference is offered in either place. If the Duke's motive was to resurrect strict moral laws, one critic finds it "odd" that the Duke "put the task in the hands of a man known to be unscrupulous."²⁹ But even if the Duke had judged Angelo's conduct toward Mariana to be "unscrupulous" it might not have prevented him from thinking Angelo the ideal man to enforce sexual morality—Angelo was not "unscrupulous" in the sense of being unjust to many, or in the sense of being sexually promiscuous. An isolated moral lapse does not cast doubt on a man's qualifications for political office. The same critic also finds it "odd" that the Duke was prepared "to risk the well-being of his subjects"³⁰ at the hands of such an "unscrupulous" man, but does not stop to consider this as a significant objection to the theory of a "test."

The second possibility is that the Duke is setting out to test the genuineness of what he describes as Angelo's "precise" rectitude and his "holy abstinence" (4.2.83).³¹ As one commentator has written: "The virtues which have so far appeared in Angelo's precise life of contemplation are now to be tried in the active world of government—and the Duke implies that they will However, be found mere 'seeming' or false show."³² However, as in the revelation of Angelo's treatment of Mariana, he could not anticipate that Angelo's chastity would necessarily be put to a severe trial or that, when it was, the attempt on Isabella's chastity would become known to the populace at large. Modern critics, looking askance at the long and hallowed tradition of Christian (as well as non-Christian) self-abnegation, are inclined to fault Angelo, as the sneering Lucio does, for seeking to "rebate and blunt his natural edge / With profits of the mind, study and fast" (1.4.60-61).³³ If we don't approve of Angelo's continence, so this line of thinking goes, neither does the Duke, and his purpose is to compel Angelo to abandon his self-denying ways. If the enforcement of the laws is the Duke's primary concern, then according to one argument, the Duke's explanation for his delegation of authority is "sadly inadequate, especially since the close of the play looks forward to no continued severity in those laws" (Coles, p. 24). If, on the other hand, "the testing of Angelo and the puritan style of life is the Duke's main interest, his actions become more acceptable"—what underlies the test is "the need to return Angelo to humanity," to make him learn "that he has human appetites, [and] that his blood can flow with passion" (Coles, p. 24). There are three objections to this line of reasoning: first of all, as I have shown, the Duke can have no prior guarantee, nor is there any logical reason, that giving Angelo political power will lead to a situation which will induce Angelo to recognize his own latent sexuality, to become aware, in Arthur Symons' striking words, "of the fire that lurked in so impenetrable a flint";³⁴ second, the sexuality which Angelo does come to recognize has more to do with lust (which the Duke wishes to eradicate) than with other-directed, mutual love; and finally, just as Lucio protests being compelled to marry Kate Keepdown, so Angelo, far from being "returned to humanity," is still asking to be put to death even after being compelled by the Duke to marry Mariana (5.1.476-79). An alleged objection to considering enforcement as the major theme is that the play ends with nothing having been done to amend the lax sexual laws, yet the play also ends with Angelo far from regenerate, so by the same token the "test" of him, if it exists, can hardly occupy the central position assigned to it.