dience to a foreign authority; religion was awe of an
Unknowable, with whom man can claim no kinship. Man's nature was
discovered to be spiritual, only on the side of its Wants. It was an
endowment of a hunger which nothing could satisfy--not the infinite,
because it is too great, not the finite, because it is too little; not
God, because He is too far above man, not nature, because it is too far
beneath him. We are unable to satisfy ourselves with the things of
sense, and are also "shut out of the heaven of spirit." What have been
called, "the three great terms of thought"--the World, Self, and
God--have fallen asunder in his teaching. It is the difficulty of
reconciling these which brings despair, while optimism is evidently the
consciousness of their harmony.

Now, these evils which reflection has revealed, and which are so much
deeper than those of mere sensuous disappointment, can only be removed
by deeper reflection. The harmony of the world of man's experience,
which has been broken by "the comprehensive curse of sceptical despair,"
can, as Goethe teaches us, be restored only by thought--

"In thine own soul, build it up again."

The complete refutation of Carlyle's pessimistic view can only come, by
reinterpreting each of the contradicting terms in the light of a higher
conception. We must have a deeper grasp and a new view of the Self, the
World, and God. And such a view can be given adequately only by
philosophy. Reason alone can justify the faith that has been disturbed
by reflection, and re-establish its authority.

How, then, it may be asked, can a poet be expected to turn back the
forces of a scepticism, which have been thus armed with the weapons of
dialectic? Can anything avail in this region except explicit
demonstration? A poet never demonstrates, but perceives; art is not a
process, but a result; truth for it is immediate, and it neither admits
nor demands any logical connection of ideas. The standard-bearers and
the trumpeters may be necessary to kindle the courage of the army and to
lead it on to victory, but the fight must be won by the thrust of sword
and pike. Man needs more than the intuitions of the great poets, if he
is to maintain solid possession of the truth.

Now, I am prepared to admit the force of this objection, and I shall
endeavour in the sequel to prove that, in order to establish optimism,
more is needed than Browning can give, even when interpreted in the most
sympathetic wa