o_.]

Thus, the conclusion to which knowledge inevitably leads us is that mere
power rules.

"No more than the passive clay
Disputes the potter's act,
Could the whelmed mind disobey
Knowledge, the cataract."[B]

[Footnote B: _Ibid_.]

But if the intellect is thus overwhelmed, so as to be almost passive to
the pessimistic conclusion borne in upon it by "resistless fact," the
heart of man is made of another mould. It revolts against the conclusion
of the intellect, and climbs

"Through turbidity all between,
From the known to the unknown here,
Heaven's 'Shall be,' from earth's 'Has been.'"[C]

[Footnote C: _Ibid_.]

It grasps a fact beyond the reach of knowledge, namely, the possibility,
or even the certainty, that "power is love." At present there is no
substantiating by knowledge the testimony of the heart; and man has no
better anchorage for his optimism than faith. But the closer view will
come, when even our life on earth will be seen to have within it the
working of love, no less manifest than that of power.

"When see? When there dawns a day,
If not on the homely earth,
Then, yonder, worlds away,
Where the strange and new have birth,
And Power comes full in play."[D]

[Footnote D: _Ibid_.]

Now, what is this evidence of the heart, which is sufficiently cogent
and valid to counterpoise that of the mind; and which gives to "faith,"
or "hope," a firm foothold in the very face of the opposing "resistless"
testimony of knowledge?

Within our experience, to which the poet knows we are entirely confined,
there is a fact, the significance of which we have not as yet examined.
For, plain and irresistible as is the evidence of evil, so plain and
constant is man's recognition of it as evil, and his desire to annul it.
If man's mind is made to acknowledge evil, his moral nature is made so
as to revolt against it.

"Man's heart is _made_ to judge
Pain deserved nowhere by the common flesh
Our birth-right--bad and good deserve alike
No pain, to human apprehension."[A]

[Footnote A: _Mihrab Shah_--_Ferishtah's Fancies_.]

Owing to the limitation of our intelligence, we cannot deny but that

"In the eye of God
Pain may have purpose and be justified."

But whether it has its purpose for the supreme intelligence or not,

"Man's sense avails to only see, in pain,
A hateful chance no man but would avert
Or, failing, needs must pity."[B]

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