The faith," which he professed, was not
the faith that anticipates and invites proof, but a faith which is
incapable of proof. In casting doubt upon the validity of knowledge, he
degraded the whole spiritual nature of man; for a love that is ignorant
of its object is a blind impulse, and a moral consciousness that does
not know the law is an impossible phantom--a self-contradiction.

But, although Browning's explicitly philosophical theory of life fails,
there appears in his earlier poems, where his poetical freedom was not
yet trammelled, nor his moral enthusiasm restrained by the stubborn
difficulties of reflective thought, a far truer and richer view. In this
period of pure poetry, his conception of man was less abstract than in
his later works, and his inspiration was more direct and full. The
poet's dialectical ingenuity increased with the growth of his reflective
tendencies; but his relation to the great principles of spiritual life
seemed to become less intimate, and his expression of them more halting.
What we find in his earlier works are vigorous ethical convictions, a
glowing optimistic faith, achieving their fitting expression in
impassioned poetry; what we find in his later works are arguments,
which, however richly adorned with poetic metaphors, have lost the
completeness and energy of life. His poetic fancies are like chaplets
which crown the dead. Lovers of the poet, who seek in his poems for
inspiring expressions of their hope and faith, will always do well in
turning from his militant metaphysics to his art.

In his case, as in that of many others, spiritual experience was far
richer than the theory which professed to explain it. The task of
lifting his moral convictions into the clear light of conscious
philosophy was beyond his power. The theory of the failure of knowledge,
which he seems to have adopted far too easily from the current doctrine
of the schools, was fundamentally inconsistent with his generous belief
in the moral progress of man; and it maimed the expression of that
belief. The result of his work as a philosopher is a confession of
complete ignorance and the helpless asseveration of a purely dogmatic
faith.

The fundamental error of the poet's philosophy lies, I believe, in that
severance of feeling and intelligence, love and reason, which finds
expression in _La Saisiaz_, _Ferishtah's Fancies_, _The Parleyings_, and
_Asolando_. Such an absolute division is not to be found in
_Chris