dwelling of that which is
highest in man. On this basis, Browning is able to re-establish the
optimism which, from the side of knowledge, he had utterly abandoned.

The very fact that the world is condemned by man is proof that there
dwells in man something better than the world, whose evidence the
pessimist himself cannot escape. All is not wrong, as long as wrong
_seems_ wrong. The pessimist, in condemning the world, must except
himself. In his very charge against God of having made man in His anger,
there lies a contradiction; for he himself fronts and defies the
outrage. There is no depth of despair which this good cannot illumine
with joyous light, for the despair is itself the reflex of the good.

"Were earth and all it holds illusions mere,
Only a machine for teaching love and hate, and hope and fear,

"If this life's conception new life fail to realize--
Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one huge
Reflex of the devil's doings--God's work by no subterfuge,"[A]

[Footnote A: _La Saisiaz_.]

still, good is good, and love is its own exceeding great reward. Alone,
in a world abandoned to chaos and infinite night, man is still not
without God, if he loves. In virtue of his love, he himself would be
crowned as God, as the poet often argues, were there no higher love
elsewhere.

"If he believes
Might can exist with neither will nor love,
In God's case--what he names now Nature's Law--
While in himself he recognizes love
No less than might and will,"[B]

[Footnote B: _Death in the Desert_.]

man takes, and rightly takes, the title of being "First, last, and best
of things."

"Since if man prove the sole existent thing
Where these combine, whatever their degree,
However weak the might or will or love,
So they be found there, put in evidence--
He is as surely higher in the scale
Than any might with neither love nor will,
As life, apparent in the poorest midge,
Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self,
Given to the nobler midge for resting-place!
Thus, man proves best and highest--God, in fine."[A]

[Footnote A: _A Death in the Desert_.]

To any one capable of spiritually discerning things, there can be no
difficulty in regarding goodness, however limited and mated with
weakness, as infinitely above all natural power. Divinity will be known
to consist, not in any senseless might, however majestic and miraculous,