source. To him all moral endeavour is
the process of this Primal Love; and every man, as he consciously
identifies himself with it, may use the language of Scripture, and say,
"It is not I that live, but Christ lives in me."

But, on the side of knowledge, he was neither so deeply interested, nor
had he so good a guide to lean upon. Ignorant, according to all
appearances, of the philosophy which has made the Christian maxim, "Die
to live,"--which primarily is only a principle of morality--the basis of
its theory of knowledge, he exaggerated the failure of science to reach
the whole truth as to any particular object, into a qualitative
discrepancy between knowledge and truth. Because knowledge is never
complete, it is always mere lacquered ignorance; and man's apparent
intellectual victories are only conquests in a land of unrealities, or
mere phenomena. He occupies in regard to knowledge, a position strictly
analogous to that of Carlyle, in regard to morality; his intellectual
pessimism is the counterpart of the moral pessimism of his predecessor,
and it springs from the same error. He forgot that the ideal without is
also the power within, which makes for its own manifestation in the mind
of man.

He opposed the intellect to the world, as Carlyle opposed the weakness
of man to the law of duty; and he neglected the fact that the world was
there for him, only because he knew it, just as Carlyle neglected the
fact that the duty was without, only because it was recognized within.
He strained the difference between the ideal and actual into an absolute
distinction; and, as Carlyle condemned man to strive for a goodness
which he could never achieve, so Browning condemns him to pursue a truth
which he can never attain. In both, the failure is regarded as absolute.
"There is no good in us," has for its counterpart "There is no truth in
us." Both the moralist and the poet dwell on the _negative_ relation of
the ideal and actual, and forget that the negative has no meaning,
except as the expression of a deeper affirmative. Carlyle had to learn
that we know our moral imperfection, only because we are conscious of a
better within us; and Browning had to learn that we are aware of our
ignorance, only because we have the consciousness of fuller truth with
which we contrast our knowledge. Browning, indeed, knew that the
consciousness of evil was itself evidence of the presence of good, that
perfection means death, and progress is li