iculty, in one or other of its forms, is, perhaps, the most
pressing in modern philosophy. It is the problem of the possibility of
rising above the "Either, Or" of discrepant conceptions, to a position
which grasps the alternatives together in a higher idea. It is at bottom
the question, whether we can have a philosophy at all; or whether we
must fall back once more into compromise, and the scepticism and despair
which it always brings with it.

It is just because Browning does not compromise between the contending
truths that he is instructive. The value of his solution of the problem
corresponds accurately to the degree in which he holds both the
absoluteness of God's presence in history, and the complete independence
of the moral consciousness. He refused to degrade either God or man. In
the name of religion, he refuses to say that "a purpose of reason is
visible in the social and legal structures of mankind"--_only_ "on the
whole "; and in the name of morality, he refuses to "assert the
perfection of the actual world" as it is, and by implication to stultify
all human endeavour. He knew the vice of compromising, and strove to
hold both the truths in their fulness.

That he did not compromise God's love or power, and make it dominant
merely "on the whole," leaving within His realm, which is universal, a
limbo for the "lost," is evident to the most casual reader.

"This doctrine, which one healthy view of things,
One sane sight of the general ordinance--
Nature,--and its particular object,--man,--
Which one mere eyecast at the character
Of Who made these and gave man sense to boot,
Had dissipated once and evermore,--
This doctrine I have dosed our flock withal.
Why? Because none believed it."[A]

[Footnote A: _The Inn Album_.]

"O'er-punished wrong grows right," Browning says. Hell is, for him, the
consciousness of opportunities neglected, arrested growth; and even
that, in turn, is the beginning of a better life.

"However near I stand in His regard,
So much the nearer had I stood by steps
Offered the feet which rashly spurned their help.
That I call Hell; why further punishment?"[B]

[Footnote B: _A Camel-Driver._]

Another ordinary view, according to which evil is self-destructive, and
ends with the annihilation of its servant, he does not so decisively
reject. At least, in a passage of wonderful poetic and philosophic
power, which he puts into the mouth of Caponsacchi, he descri