its destructive might, except by deeper reflection. The
implicit faith of the heart must become the explicit faith of reason.
"There is no final and satisfactory issue from such an endless internal
debate and conflict, until the 'heart' has learnt to speak the language
of the head--_i.e._, until the permanent principles, which underlay and
gave strength to faith, have been brought into the light of distinct
consciousness."[A]

[Footnote A: Caird's _Comte_.]

I conclude, therefore, that the poet was right in saying that, in order
to comprehend human character,

"I needs must blend the quality of man
With quality of God, and so assist
Mere human sight to understand my Life."[A]

[Footnote A: _A Bean-Stripe_--_Ferishtah's Fancies_.]

But it was a profound error, which contained in it the destruction of
morality and religion, as well as of knowledge, to make "the quality of
God" a love that excludes reason, and the quality of man an intellect
incapable of knowing truth. Such in-congruous elements could never be
combined into the unity of a character. A love that was mere emotion
could not yield a motive for morality, or a principle of religion. A
philosophy of life which is based on agnosticism is an explicit
self-contradiction, which can help no one. We must appeal from Browning
the philosopher to Browning the poet.

CHAPTER XI.

CONCLUSION.

"Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and through his art--for it gives way;
That arm is wrongly put--and there again--
A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,
Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
He means right--that, a child may understand."[A]

[Footnote A: _Andrea del Sarto_.]

I have tried to show that Browning's theory of life, in so far as it is
expressed in his philosophical poems, rests on agnosticism; and that
such a theory is inconsistent with the moral and religious interests of
man. The idea that truth is unattainable was represented by Browning as
a bulwark of the faith, but it proved on examination to be treacherous.
His optimism was found to have no better foundation than personal
conviction, which any one was free to deny, and which the poet could in
no wise prove. The evidence of the heart, to which he appealed, was the
evidence of an emotion severed from intelligence, and, therefore,
without any content whatsoever. "