the head.

Browning, as we have seen, unhesitatingly adopts the latter alternative.
He remains loyal to the deliverances of his moral consciousness and
accepts as equally valid, beliefs which the intellect finds to be
self-contradictory: holding that knowledge on such matters is
impossible. And he rejects this knowledge, not only because our thoughts
are self-contradictory in themselves, but because the failure of a
speculative solution of these problems is necessary to morality. Clear,
convincing, demonstrative knowledge would destroy morality; and the fact
that the power to attain such knowledge has been withheld from us is to
be regarded rather as an indication of the beneficence of God, who has
not held even ignorance to be too great a price for man to pay for
goodness.

Knowledge is not the fit atmosphere for morality. It is faith and not
reason, hope and trust but not certainty, that lend vigour to the good
life. We may believe, and rejoice in the belief, that the absolute good
is fulfilling itself in all things, and that even the miseries of life
are really its refracted rays--the light that gains in splendour by
being broken. But we must not, and, indeed, cannot ascend from faith to
knowledge. The heart may trust, and must trust, if it faithfully listens
to its own natural voice; but reason must not demonstrate. Ignorance on
the side of intellect, faith on the side of the emotions; distrust of
knowledge, absolute confidence in love; such is the condition of man's
highest welfare: it is only thus that the purpose of his life, and of
the world which is his instrument, can be achieved.

No final estimate of the value of this theory of morals and religion can
be made, without examining its philosophical presuppositions. Nor is
such an examination in any way unfair; for it is obvious that Browning
explicitly offers us a philosophical doctrine. He appeals to argument
and not to artistic intuition; he offers a definite theory to which he
claims attention, not on account of any poetic beauty that may lie
within it, but on the ground that it is a true exposition of the moral
nature of man. Kant's _Metaphysic of Ethics_ is not more metaphysical in
intention than the poet's later utterances on the problems of morality.
In _La Saisiaz_, in _Ferishtah's Fancies_, in the _Parleyings_, and,
though less explicitly, in _Asolando_, _Fifine at the Fair_, and _Red
Cotton Nightcap Country_, Browning definitely states, and endeavou