The soul in itself
is a simple work; what God works in the simple light of the soul is
more beautiful and more delightful than all the other works which
He works in all creatures. But foolish people take evil for good
and good for evil. But to him who rightly understands, the one work
which God works in the soul is better and nobler and higher than
all the world. Through that light comes grace. Grace never comes in
the intelligence or in the will. If it could come in the
intelligence or in the will, the intelligence and the will would
have to transcend themselves. On this a master says: There is
something secret about it; and thereby he means the spark of the
soul, which alone can apprehend God. The true union between God and
the soul takes place in the little spark, which is called the
spirit of the soul.[9]

The essential unity of God and man is expressed more than once by
Browning in Eckhart's image: as when he speaks of God as Him

Who never is dishonoured in the spark
He gave us from his fire of fires.

He is at one with Eckhart, and with all mystics, in his appeal from the
intellect to that which is beyond intellect; in his assertion of the
supremacy of feeling, intuition, over knowledge. Browning never wearies
of dwelling on the relativity of physical knowledge, and its inadequacy
to satisfy man. This is perhaps best brought out in one of the last
things he wrote, the "Reverie" in _Asolando_; but it is dwelt on in
nearly all his later and more reflective poems. His maxim was--

Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then, and trust
As wholly love allied to ignorance!
There lies thy truth and safety. ...
Consider well!
Were knowledge all thy faculty, then God
Must be ignored: love gains him by first leap.

_A Pillar at Sebzevar._

Another point of resemblance with Eckhart is suggested by his words:
"That foolish people take evil for good, and good for evil." Browning's
theory of evil is part of the working-out of his principle of what may
be called the coincidence of extreme opposites. This is, of course, part
of his main belief in unity, but it is an interesting development of it.
This theory is marked all through his writings; and, although
philosophers have dealt with it, he is perhaps the one poet who faces
the problem, and expresses himself on the point with entire conviction.
His view