Conclusion - Page 2

primary concern of the poet lay with the
message after all!'

More cogent objection has been taken to the character of the 'message'
as judged from a philosophic point of view. It is the expression or
exposition of a vivid a priori religious faith confirmed by positive
experience; and it reflects as such a double order of thought, in which
totally opposite mental activities are often forced into co-operation
with each other. Mr. Sharp says, this time quoting from Mr. Mortimer
('Scottish Art Review', December 1889):

'His position in regard to the thought of the age is paradoxical, if not
inconsistent. He is in advance of it in every respect but one, the most
important of all, the matter of fundamental principles; in these he
is behind it. His processes of thought are often scientific in their
precision of analysis; the sudden conclusion which he imposes upon them
is transcendental and inept.'

This statement is relatively true. Mr. Browning's positive reasonings
often do end with transcendental conclusions. They also start from
transcendental premises. However closely his mind might follow the
visible order of experience, he never lost what was for him the
consciousness of a Supreme Eternal Will as having existed before it; he
never lost the vision of an intelligent First Cause, as underlying all
minor systems of causation. But such weaknesses as were involved in
his logical position are inherent to all the higher forms of natural
theology when once it has been erected into a dogma. As maintained by
Mr. Browning, this belief held a saving clause, which removed it from
all dogmatic, hence all admissible grounds of controversy: the more
definite or concrete conceptions of which it consists possessed no
finality for even his own mind; they represented for him an absolute
truth in contingent relations to it. No one felt more strongly than he
the contradictions involved in any conceivable system of Divine creation
and government. No one knew better that every act and motive which we
attribute to a Supreme Being is a virtual negation of His existence.
He believed nevertheless that such a Being exists; and he accepted His
reflection in the mirror of the human consciousness, as a necessarily
false image, but one which bears witness to the truth.

His works rarely indicate this condition of feeling; it was not often
apparent in his conversation. The faith which he had contingently
accepted became absolute for him from all practical points of view; it
became subject to all the conditions of his humanity. On the ground of
abstract logic he was always ready to disavow it; the transcendental
imagination and the acknowledged limits of human reason claimed the last
word in its behalf. This philosophy of