Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher

ove! I build my

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further to gather together

hesitate to represent the moral life as a struggle with evil, and a movement through error towards a highest good which is never finally realized. He sees that the contradiction is not an absolute one, but that a good man is always both moral and religious, and, in every good act he does, transcends their difference. He knew that the ideal apart from the process is nothing, and that "a God beyond the stars" is simply the unknowable. But he knew, too, that the ideal is not merely the process, but also

identify the moral law with the nature of God. It is this that gives value to his view of moral progress, as

Leave Now for

s Fore

arian's

ld or out of it. To end such a process, to stop that activity, were therefore evil. But it cannot end, for it is the self-manifestation of the divine life. There is plenty of way to make, for the ideal is absolute goodness. The process cannot exhaust the absolute, and it is impossible that man should be God. And yet this process is the process of the absolute, the working of the ideal, the presence of

f the human and the divine is a

shall I,

for aye

d brute; a God th

bi Ben

into an unknowable absolute, and man is made incapable not only of moral, but also of intellectual life. The poet himself has proved craven-hearted in this, as we shall see. He, too, sets up insurmountable barriers between the divine and the human, and thereby weakens both his religious and his moral convictions. His moral inspiration is greatest just where his religious enthusiasm

reat, were the

e thunder come

rt I made, a h

fashioned, se

wer nor may'st

e thee, with m

ve Me who have d

stle from

idea of the actual immanence of God in man. In these poems he seems to have abandoned it in favour of the hypotheses of a more timid philosophy. But, if his religious faith had not been embarrassed by certain dogmatic presuppositions of which he

ning sought to reconcile the moral and religious elements of human l

ret the life of man as God's life in man, so that man, in attaining the moral ideal proper

ntradiction between them which, both in theory and in practice, has embarrassed the world for so many ages. Love is the sublimest conception attainable by man; a life inspired by it is the most perfect form of goodness he can conceive; therefore, love is, at the same moment, man's moral ideal, and the very e

ing worm wit

er than a

lds, I will

ristm

wer to love, did not find the same power in God, then man

full in my nature,

ve can compete with it?

urpass the Creator,-

S

doubt the poet himself. God is Him

that givest, 'ti

last, in Thy will is

one

m that I love? So woul

the topmost, ineffabl

nfinitude wholly, n

the creature

S

and the moral ideal of man, but it is also the purpose and

ld's no b

eans intensely

Lippo

od has made it

is is love, an

ay be sought f

gh its universal sway, even the very wickedness and misery of life are brought int

eve this dr

row, would con

pain, at mos

ho devised p

hinery in

alities of m

ove in turn a

d self-sacr

ventually

the Book-The P

nature of God, within the limits of the same conception. The idea of

ing tha

, under hum

egarded by

s very nea

gift as jo

aste

ils of the world, and the power as an artist to "contrive his music from its moans." It plays, in his philosophy of life, the part that Reason fills for Hegel, or the Blind Will for Schopenhauer; and he is as fearless as they are in reducing all phenomena into forms of the activity of his first principle. Love not only gave him firm footing a

ferent significance; and almost every great poet has given it a different interpretation. And this is not unnatural. For love is a passion which, beginning with youth and the hey-day of

man to man and age to age. It is the author of the organic institutions which, standing between the individual and the rudeness of nature, awaken in him the need, and give him the desire and the faculty, of attaining higher things than physical satisfaction. Man is meant to act as well as to think, to be virtuous as well as to have knowledge. It is possible that reverence for the intellect may have led men, at times, to attribute the evolution of the race too exclusively to the theoretic consciousness, forgetting that, along with reason, there co-operates a twin power in all that is wisest and best in

at is loving or the love that is rational; for,

pass through stage after stage, always away from the particularity of selfishness and ignorance, into larger and larger cycles of common truth and goodness, towards the full realization of knowledge and benevolence, which is the inheritance of emancipated man. In this transition, the sensuous play of feeling within man, and the sensitive responses to external stimuli, are made more and more organic to ends which are universal, that is, to spiritual ends. Love, which in its earliest form, seems to be the natural yearning of brute for brute, appearing and disappearing at the suggestion of physical needs, passes into an idealized sentiment, into an emotion of the soul, into a principle of moral activity which manifests itself in a permanent outflow of helpful deeds for man. It represents, when thus sublimated, one side at least of the expansion of the self, which culminates when the world beats in the pulse of the individual, and the joys and sorrows, the defeats and victories of mankind are felt by him as his own. It is no longer depen

re faithfully the fervour and intoxication of passion, and who have shown greater power of interpreting it in the light of a mystic idealism. But, in one thing, Browning stands alone. He has given to love a moral significance, a place and power amongst those substantial elements on which rest the dignity of man's being and the greatness of his destiny, in a way which is, I believe, without example in any other poet. And he has done this by means of that moral and religious earnestness, which pervades all

est ash, there hi

love's breath, may y

ree again, be fire;

or, great or little

at the F

ed, once admitt

orth to

lood, and straight

o conquer, throu

ttle with

bid.

trust in the intellect became less. Even in Paracelsus he reveals love, not as a sentiment or intoxicating passion, as one might expect from a youthful poe

pes too fair to

and futility, worthless for the individual and worthless to the race. "Mind is nothing but disease," Paracelsus cries in t

lves of one di

chance unites once

over, know; and

l both ar

arac

lf as to the gain and loss of life, proclaims with his last strength the truth

ile-my Apr

melodious wret

moaned his weak

wn deep error;

worth of love

tion love shoul

constitution;

much power, alwa

straitened in h

r new power to

to their concerns, it was not strange that he saw no good in men and failed to

it in the poet's later works. In Ferishtah's Fancies and La Saisiaz it is no longer riva

e is

, Eternit

nowledge and truth, are given to man, but none of them satisfy his spirit; they merely sting with hunger for

thy fin

best? 'Tis s

hou dost

d beauty in

sness of lov

ably rou

ithin it a

e,-but in va

from Him who

t delibe

w take love!

dy cons

aste

and tinged with sense. The truth we reach at best is only truth for us, relative, distorted. We are for ever kept from the fact which is supposed to be given; our intellects play about it; sense and even intellect itself are interposing media, which we must use, and yet, in using them, we only fool ourselves with semblances. The poet has now grown so cautious that he will not declare

ds conjectu

his comes only,-thin

without me and above

know not-ignorance

at I am, and, since

pleasure: this is sur

a Sa

ppeal when one affirms "green as grass," and another contradicts him with "red as grass." Under such ci

he spokesman for my br

onounce for God, and pretend that the

as echo of the sphe

onfounded it shrivel

w purblind, how blank,

within and aroun

he soul, which in ben

n's nothing-perfect

sance in spirit, I

aul,

e faculty so supreme in worth

claim and parade i

e gift.-Behold, I co

tension as fearing

one way of love: I ab

aul,

f loving, as He has of truth, is itself divine. In contrast with the activity of love, Omnipotence itself dwindles into insignificance, and creation sinks into a puny exercise of power. Love, in a word, is the highest good; and,

ve is still a power divine, making for all goodness. Even when it is kindled into flame by an illicit touch, and wars against the life of the family, which is its own product, its worth is supreme. He who has learned to love in any way, has "caught God's secret." How he has caught

eaks of, however irregular its manifestation or sensuous its setting, can never be confounded with lust-"hell's own blue tint." It is further removed from lust even than asceticism. It has not even a negative attitude towards the flesh; but finds the flesh to be "stuff for transmuting," and reduces it to the uses of the spirit. The love which is sun

od and

a c

an and

thine

, only te

I o

ak thy spe

thy th

f thou r

dem

flesh a

y han

man's L

very essence of the self upon its object, and by doing so, in the end enriching the self beyond all counting. For in loving, the individ

join, there

nd one with a

one is

fter, and h

the night a

hat a bar was

e: we were m

f the mort

the Fi

, is its worst perversion. Love spends itself for another, and seeks satisfaction only in another's good. But last uses up others for its own worst purposes, wastes its object, and turns the current of life back inwards, into the slush and filth of selfish pleasure. The distinction between love and its perversion, which is impossible in the naive life of an animal, ought to be clear enough to all, and probably is. Nor should the sexual impulse in human beings be confused with fleshly desire, and treated as if it were merely natural, "the mere lust of life" common to all living things,-"that strive," as Spinoza put it, "to persevere in existing." For there is no purely natural impulse in man; all that he is, is transfused with spirit, whether he will or no. He cannot act as a mere animal, because he cannot leave his rat

ove, amidst all the confused lawlessness of lustful passion, and through all the intricacies of human character. Love, he thinks, is never illicit, never unwise, except when it is disloyal to itself; it never ruins, but always strives to enrich its object. Bacon quotes with approval a saying "That it is impossible to love,

At least Browning, in this poem, strives to show that, being true love, though the love of an unclean man for an unclean woma

whence fl

, or else from stra

r but l

disregard! wh

w love is i

od-purifies,

passions t

urself so far a

e can go unr

essed him to his

ndered, baser c

ished where you d

e at the

mbe's B

I

eatest potency can reveal itself only in characters intrinsically pure, such as Pompilia and Caponsacchi. Like mercy and every oth

s dishonoure

m His fire of

ce it sprang,

n, though all the

e to Any H

of all goodness; the motive, and inspiring cause, of every act in the world that is completely right; and how, on that account, it is the actua

e outer world, in the "material" universe. In the view of the poet, the whole creation is nothing but love incarnate, a pulsation from the divine heart. Love is the source of all law and of all beauty. "Day unto day uttereth speech,

the heroine of

s means onl

and ends there

n the circle,

e Inn

thing of this motherhood

me

t into a tree

th wind with what

e Book-Canon Capon

y one, speaks for B

ird, reptile

g doubt, even tr

e field, are all

efend the tru

the Ever

the Book-The P

d," said the minor po

ch

ner place, sinks p

weakness, wit-folly

proved males's m

er-pined, will sl

assault

st is the "unexampled sin," whic

t, failing

had oped, sky f

ong, motherhood's

n Ivàn

hysical attraction. No doubt its basis is physical; it has an organism of flesh and blood for its vehicle and instrument: but mathematical physics cannot explain it, nor can it be detected by chemical tests. Rather, with

ls us in Fifine, which cannot reflect it; even moral putridity becomes phos

ood of life bu

ood, is some shad

it, gives

a ba

ve love for its purpose, and, therefore, for its substance. And it is on

in place allot

perf

at the F

r. The permanence in change of nature, the unity in variety, the strength which clothes itself in beauty, are all manifestations of l

d is, wh

ow God tastes

ys-one everl

being emanat

whom is life

stence in it

lud

arac

not begin with man, he i

butes had he

o'er the visibl

ombined, dim f

in some won

lities throug

me one creatu

all those scatter

in the facu

evisions of w

onfusedly ev

tures, and all

divinely the

es too fair to

appears

arac

, all these are found

nded to

ced, all has i

pleted man

ency t

I

nt, flings back his ligh

l the inferior

step in th

bid.

ificance of Nature, and lets in

escried, imp

on all life

ind disease, but because his knowledge did not reach the final truth of things, which is love. For love alone makes the heart wise, to know the secret of all being. This is the ultimate hypothesis in the light of which alone man can catch a glimpse of the general direction and intent of the universal movement in the world and man. Dying, Paracelsus, taught by Aprile, caught a glimpse of this element

y a

ion, ugline

disgraces be

ge in human

o era

arac

good in evil, and a hope in ill succ

ouch of noble

pward tending

mines which nev

im, and guess

est to climb a

I

s lamp of love, 'God's lamp, close to their breasts'; its splendour, soon or late, will pier