nvictions regarding the
high matters of human destiny are valid only for himself.

"Only for myself I speak,
Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak."[B]

[Footnote B: _Ibid_.]

Experience, as he interprets it, that is, present consciousness, "this
moment's me and mine," is too narrow a basis for any universal or
objective conclusion. So far as his own inner experience of pain and
pleasure goes,

"All--for myself--seems ordered wise and well
Inside it,--what reigns outside, who can tell?"[A]

[Footnote A: _Francis Furini_.]

But as to the actual world, he can have no opinion, nor, from the good
and evil that apparently play around him, can he deduce either

"Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse
In each good or evil issue."[B]

[Footnote B: _La Saisiaz_.]

The moral government of the world is a subject, regarding which we are
doomed to absolute ignorance. A theory that it is ruled by the "prince
of the power of the air" has just as much, and just as little, validity
as the more ordinary view held by religious people. Who needs be told

"The space
Which yields thee knowledge--do its bounds embrace
Well-willing and wise-working, each at height?
Enough: beyond thee lies the infinite--
Back to thy circumscription!"[C]

[Footnote C: _Francis Furini_.]

And our ignorance of God, and the world, and ourselves is matched by a
similar ignorance regarding moral matters.

"Ignorance overwraps his moral sense,
Winds him about, relaxing, as it wraps,
So much and no more than lets through perhaps
The murmured knowledge--' Ignorance exists.'"[D]

[Footnote D: _Ibid_.]

We cannot be certain even of the distinction and conflict of good and
evil in the world. They, too, and the apparent choice between them to
which man is continually constrained, may be mere illusions--phenomena
of the individual consciousness. What remains, then? Nothing but to
"wait."

"Take the joys and bear the sorrows--neither with extreme concern!
Living here means nescience simply: 'tis next life that helps to
learn."[A]

[Footnote A: _La Saisiaz_.]

It is hardly necessary to enter upon any detailed criticism of such a
theory of knowledge as this, which is proffered by the poet. It is well
known by all those who are in some degree acquainted with the history of
philosophy--and it will be easily seen by all who have any critical