Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher

y style the love

, feeling the abso

ole and sole, not an

, feeler, beside

the whole, once

urpass the frag

thereby the ult

at the F

that of any other of our great writers. He often seems to be roused into speech, rather by the intensity of his spiritual convictions than by the subtle incitements of poetic sensibility. His convictions caught fire, and truth became beauty for him; not beauty, truth, as with Keats or Shelley.

ng fiend." He has given to us something more than intuitive glimpses into, the mysteries of man's character. Throughout his life he held up the steady light of an optimistic conception of the world, and by its means injected new vigour into English ethical thought. In his case, therefore, it is not an immaterial question, but one almost forced upon us, whether we are to take his ethical doctrine and

ned view of the ethical nature of man, and of his relation to the world-has sought, in fact, to establish a philosophy of life. In his case, not without injustice, it is true, but with less injustice than in the case of any other poet, we may disregard, for our purposes, the artistic method of his thought, and lay stress on its content only. He has a right to a place amongst philosophers, as Plato ha

t what he says of man's spiritual life cannot be rightly valued, till it is regarded in the light of his guiding principles. We shall miss much of what is best in him, even as a poet, if, for instance, we re

irst, Power

made cl

e but for c

as plain

erie-A

the same thing in another way, it was a deliberate hypothesis, which he sought to apply to facts and to test

pressed a definite theory, will it retain any value if we take it out of the region of poetry and impassioned religious faith, into the frigid zone of philosophical inquiry? Could any one maintain, apart from the intoxication of religious and poetic sentiment, that the essence of existence is love? As long as we remain within the realm of imagination, it may be argued, we may find in our poet's great sayings both solacement and strength, both rest and an impulse towards higher moral endeavour; but if we seek to treat them as theories of facts, and turn upon them the light of the under

of the common creed that every attempt which the world has made to bring them together has resulted in denial, or at the best in doubt, regarding all supersensuous facts. The one condition of leading a full life, of maintaining a living r

l life. If such a condition were imposed on man, it must inevitably defeat its own purpose; for man cannot possibly continue to live a divided life, and persist in believing that for which his reason knows no defence. We must, in the long run, either rationalize our faith in morality and religion, or abandon them as illusions. And we should at least hesitate to deny that reason-in spite of its apparent failure in the past to justify our faith in the principles of spiritual life-may yet, as it be

or science has done one thing greater than to unlock the secrets of nature. It has revealed something of the might of reason, and given new grounds for the faith, which in all ages has inspired the effort to know,-the faith that the world is an intelligible structure, meant to be penetrated by the thought of man. Can it be that nature is an "open secret," but that man, and he alone, must remain an enigma? Or does he not rather bear within himself the key to every problem which he solves, and is it not his thought which penetrates the secrets of nature?

ind will not give up problems of weighty import, however hard it may be to solve them. The world refused to believe Socrates when he pronounced a science of nature impossible, and centuries of failure did not break man's courage. Science, it is true, has given up some problems as insoluble; it will no

pt it. One might, on the contrary, expect, prima facie, that in a world progressively proved to be intelligible to man, man himself would be no exce

are they aware that there is no interpretation of an object which does not finally point to a theory of being. We understand no joint or ligament, except in relation to the whole organism, and no fact, or event, except by finding a place for it in the context of our experience. The history of the pebble can be given, only in the light of the story of the earth, as it is told by the whole of geology. We must begin very far back, and bring our widest principles to bear upon the particular thing, if we wish really to know what it is. It is a law that expl

ious spirit. It is because of this that the universe is a thing of beauty for the poet, a revelation of God's goodness to the devout soul, and a manifestation of absolute reason to the philosopher. Art, religion, and philosophy fail or flourish together. The age of prose and scepticism appears when

together presuppose the presence in the world of a principle that binds it into an orderly totality. Scientific explorers know that they are all working towards the same centre. And, ever and anon, as the isolated thinker presses home his own hypothesis, he finds his thought beating on the limits of his science, and suggesting some wider hypothesis. The walls that separate the sciences are wearing thin, and at times light penetrates from one to the other. So that to their votaries, at least, the fa

successfully invades the realm of chaos, poetry, the sense of the whole, comes first. There is the intuitive flash, the penetrative glimpse, got no one knows exactly whence-though we do know that it comes neither from the dead facts nor from the vacant region of a priori thought, but somehow from the interaction of both these elements of knowledge. After the intui

elf. It reveals subsidiary principles, and is, at the same time, a witness for the unity of the categories of science. We may say, if we wish, that its principles are mere hypotheses. But so are the ideas which underlie the most practical of the sciences; so is every forecast of genius by virtue of which knowledge is extended; so is every principl

l energy, and make it tractable and tame to man's uses. All I teach depends upon my hypothesis. In it is the secret of all the power I wield. I do not pretend to say what this elemental energy is. I make no declaration regarding the actual nature of things; and all questions as to the ultimate origin or final destination of the world are beyond the scope of my inquiry. I am ruled by my hypothesis

nguided of any hypothesis. But if they do not, if, on the contrary, each science is ruled by its own hypothesis, and uses that hypothesis to bind its facts together, then the question arises, are there no wider colligating principles amongst t

uctive thought, may yet be uncertain. But, still, there is such an order and connection: the whole building has its plan, which becomes more and more intelligible as it approaches to its completion. Beneath all the differences, there are fundamental principles which give to human thought a definite unity of movement and direction. There are architectonic conceptions which are guiding, not only the different sciences, but all the modes of t

ce the supreme directorate of the human intelligence in the hands of a necessity which, for us, is blind. For, an order that is hidden is equivalent to chance, so far as knowledge is concerned; and if we believe it to exist, we do so in the face of the fact that all we see, and all we can see, is the opposite of orde

ion, which is determined by some characteristic and fundamental idea, that fulfils for it the part of a working hypothesis in a particular science. It is the prerogative of the greatest leaders of thought in an age to catch a glimpse of this ruling idea when it first makes its appearance; and it is their function, not only to discover it, but also to reveal it to others. And, in this way, they are at once the exponents of th

n a manner in Browning: an insight which is also foresight, a dim and partial consciousness of the truth about to be, sending its light before it, and anticipating all systematic reflection. It is an insight which appears to be independent of all method; but it is in nature, though not in sweep and expanse, akin to the intu

e, and give it its work and its character. In this way, Hobbes and Locke laid down, or at least defined, the boundaries within which moved the thought of the eighteenth century; and no one acquainted with the poetic and philosophic thought of Germany, from Lessing to Goethe and from Kant to Hegel, can fail to find therein the source and spring of the constitutive principles of our own intellectual, social, political, and religious life. The virtues and the vices of the aristocracy of the world o

y and sense of the infinite height of the moral horizon of humanity, in his courageous faith in the good, and his profound conviction of the evanescence of evil, there lies a vital energy whose inspiring power we are yet destined to f

o man's victory over his environment and himself, but they contribute in a manner which is substantially the same. There are many points of superficial distinction between the processes of philosophy and science, and between both and the method of poetry; but the inner movement, if one may so express it, is identical in all. It is time to have done with the notion that

, fr

n ourselves; i

ings, whate'er

only when the higher principles of philosophy have been fully developed, and when the departmental ideas of the various sciences are organized into a view of the world as a whole. And this is a task which has not as yet been accomplished. The forces from above and below have not met. When they do meet, they will assuredly find that they are friends, and not foes. For philosophy can articulate its supreme conception only by interaction with the sciences; and, on the other hand, the progress of science, and the effectiveness of its division of labour, are ultimately conditioned by its sensitiveness to the hints, given by poets and philosophers, of those wider principles in virtue of which the world is conceived as a unity. There are many, indeed, who cannot see the wood for the trees, as there are others who cannot see the trees for the wood. Carlyle cared nothing though science were able to turn a sunbeam on its axis; Ruskin sees little in the advance of in

o bear, and doubt

his say, his scheme

of us whom he wh

and welcome: 'tis

bt V

ints, carries "back our scattered knowledge of the facts and laws of nature to the principle upon which they rest; and, on the other hand, develops that

sophy at the Present Ti

ry, biology, and the other sciences, while they necessarily presuppose the unity of knowledge, and attempt in their own way and in their own sphere to discover it, are making very satisfactory headway without raising any of the desperate questions of metaphysics as to its ultimate nature. For them it is not likely to matter for a long time to come whether Optimism or Pessimism, Materialism or Idealism, or none of them, be true. In any case the principles they establish are valid. Physical rela

g, for a time, its dependence on the wider aspects of human thought. There is no department of nature so limited, but that it may more than satisfy t

e safest, there'

flower-bell, so

nding from

ugh for fifty

w at once as

ock and enter

dance there, a

ent idol, on h

haps! We look

sgivings, crooke

Blougram

lution of the planets, or the structure of an oyster. And this self of ours intrudes everywhere. It is only by resolutely shutting our eyes, that we can forget the part it plays even in the outer world of natural science. So active is it in the constitu

orst and the best alike, is constrained to take some practical attitude towards his fellows. Man is never alone with nature, and the connec

said Bishop Blougram,

xercise, they

universe on which he must impress his image. Every man must have his philosophy of life, simply because he must act; though, in many cases, that philosophy may be latent and unconscious, or, at least, not a definite object of reflection. The most elementary question directed at his moral consciousness will at once elicit the universal element. We cannot ask whether an action be right or wrong without awakening all the echoes of metaphysics. As there is no object on the earth's surface whose equilibrium is not fixed by its relation to the earth's centre, so the most elementary moral judgment, the simplest choice, the most irrational vagaries of a will calling itself free and revelling in its supposed lawlessness, are dominated by the conception of a universal good. Everything that a man does is an attempt to articulate his view of this good, with a particular content. Hence, man as a moral agent is always the centre of his own horizon, and stands right beneath the

Man's action, so far as it is good or evil, is shot through and through with his intelligence. And once we clearly distinguish between belief and profession, between the motives which really impel our actions and the psychological account of them with which we may deceive ourselves and others, we shall be obliged to confess that we always act our creed. A man's conduct, just because he is man, is generated by his view of himself and his world. He who cheats his neighbour believes in tortuosity, and, as Carlyle says, has the Supreme Quack for

usly unreasonable to suppose that there is no need of endeavouring to reach upward to a constructive idea, which makes the universe one, but when we act, such self-deception is not possible. As a moral agent, and a moral agent man always is, he not only may, but must have his workin

condition of comprehending, to some degree, the conditions of his natural life, and the laws of his natural environment. From earliest youth upwards, he is learning that fire will burn and water drown, and that he can play with the elements with safety only within the sphere lit up by his intelligence. Nature will not pardon the blunders of ignorance, nor tamely submit to every hasty construction. And this truth is still more obvious in relation to man's moral life. Here, too, and in a pre-eminent degree, conduct waits on intelligence. Deep will only answer unto deep; and great characters only come with muc

ng to the idols of their childhood's faith; if they fortify themselves in the indifference of agnosticism,-they must reap the harvest of their irreflection. Ignorance is not harmless in matters of character any more than in the concerns of our outer life. There are in national and in individual history seasons of despair, and that despair, when it is deepest, is ever found to be the shadow of moral failure-the result of going out into action with a false view of the purpose of human life, and a wrong conception of man's destiny. At such times, the people have not understood themselves or their environment, and, in consequence, they come into collision with their own welfare. There is no experiment so dangerous to an age or peopl