Chapter 8 - Page 2

self-sacrifice and God
has none, then man has in the Universe a secret and blasphemous
superiority. And this tremendous story of a Divine jealousy Browning
reads into the story of the Crucifixion. If the Creator had not been
crucified He would not have been as great as thousands of wretched
fanatics among His own creatures. It is needless to insist upon this
point; any one who wishes to read it splendidly expressed need only be
referred to "Saul." But these are emphatically the two main doctrines
or opinions of Browning which I have ventured to characterise roughly
as the hope in the imperfection of man, and more boldly as the hope in
the imperfection of God. They are great thoughts, thoughts written by
a great man, and they raise noble and beautiful doubts on behalf of
faith which the human spirit will never answer or exhaust. But about
them in connection with Browning there nevertheless remains something
to be added.

Browning was, as most of his upholders and all his opponents say, an
optimist. His theory, that man's sense of his own imperfection implies
a design of perfection, is a very good argument for optimism. His
theory that man's knowledge of and desire for self-sacrifice implies
God's knowledge of and desire for self-sacrifice is another very good
argument for optimism. But any one will make the deepest and blackest
and most incurable mistake about Browning who imagines that his
optimism was founded on any arguments for optimism. Because he had a
strong intellect, because he had a strong power of conviction, he
conceived and developed and asserted these doctrines of the
incompleteness of Man and the sacrifice of Omnipotence. But these
doctrines were the symptoms of his optimism, they were not its origin.
It is surely obvious that no one can be argued into optimism since no
one can be argued into happiness. Browning's optimism was not founded
on opinions which were the work of Browning, but on life which was
the work of God. One of Browning's most celebrated biographers has
said that something of Browning's theology must be put down to his
possession of a good digestion. The remark was, of course, like all
remarks touching the tragic subject of digestion, intended to be funny
and to convey some kind of doubt or diminution touching the value of
Browning's faith. But if we examine the matter with somewhat greater
care we shall see that it is indeed a thorough compliment to that
faith. Nobody, strictly speaking, is happier on account of his
digestion. He is happy because he is so constituted as to forget all
about it. Nobody really is convulsed with delight at the thought of
the ingenious machinery which he possesses inside him; the thing which
delights him is simply the full possession of