es
things, and, therefore, that the key to nature is man.

In propounding this theory of love, and establishing an idealism,
Browning is in agreement with the latest achievement of modern thought.
For, if the principle of evolution be granted, love is a far more
adequate hypothesis for the explanation of the nature of things, than
any purely physical principle. Nay, science itself, in so far as it
presupposes evolution, tends towards an idealism of this type. Whether
love be the best expression for that highest principle, which is
conceived as the truth of being, and whether Browning's treatment of it
is consistent and valid, I do not as yet inquire. Before attempting that
task, it must be seen to what extent, and in what way, he applies the
hypothesis of universal love to the particular facts of life. For the
present, I take it as admitted that the hypothesis is legitimate, as an
hypothesis; it remains to ask, with what success, if any, we may hope,
by its means, to solve the contradictions of life, and to gather its
conflicting phenomena into the unity of an intelligible system. This
task cannot be accomplished within our limits, except in a very partial
manner. I can attempt to meet only a few of the more evident and
pressing difficulties that present themselves, and I can do that only in
a very general way.

The first of these difficulties, or, rather, the main difficulty from
which all others spring, is that the hypothesis of universal love is
incompatible with the existence of any kind of evil, whether natural or
moral. Of this, Browning was well aware. He knew that he had brought
upon himself the hard task of showing that pain, weakness, ignorance,
failure, doubt, death, misery, and vice, in all their complex forms, can
find their legitimate place in a scheme of love. And there is nothing
more admirable in his attitude, or more inspiring in his teaching, than
the manly frankness with which he endeavours to confront the manifold
miseries of human life, and to constrain them to yield, as their
ultimate meaning and reality, some spark of good.

But, as we have seen, there is a portion of this task in the discharge
of which Browning is drawn beyond the strict limits of art. Neither the
magnificent boldness of his religious faith, nor the penetration of his
artistic insight, although they enabled him to deal successfully with
the worst samples of human evil, as in _The Ring and the Book_, could
dissipate the gloom