Introduction to Robert Browning [151]
proved "That the probation bear no hinge nor loop To hang a doubt on"; that all after-doubt, impossible in the face of truth -- truth absolute, uniform, might have been stopped.
523. Had stopped: would have stopped.
530. the heathen bard's: Aeschylus'.
531. famous play: `Prometheus Bound'.
532. ephemerals': mortals'.
537. Titan's: Prometheus'. --
"I answer, Have ye not to argue out [540] The very primal thesis, plainest law, -- Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, A master to obey, a course to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become? Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, [545] From vain to real, from mistake to fact, From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. How could man have progression otherwise? Before the point was mooted `What is God?' No savage man inquired `What is myself?' [550] Much less replied, `First, last, and best of things.' Man takes that title now if he believes Might can exist with neither will nor love, In God's case -- what he names now Nature's Law -- While in himself he recognizes love [555] No less than might and will: and rightly takes. Since if man prove the sole existent thing Where these combine, whatever their degree, However weak the might or will or love, So they be found there, put in evidence, -- [560] He is as surely higher in the scale Than any might with neither love nor will, As life, apparent in the poorest midge (When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing), Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self -- [565] Given to the nobler midge for resting-place! Thus, man proves best and highest -- God, in fine, And thus the victory leads but to defeat, The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall, His life becomes impossible, which is death. [570]
-- 540-633. All that John says in these verses, in reply to the anticipated objections urged in vv. 514-539, are found, substantially, in several passages in Browning's poetry. See remarks on pp. 36-38 beginning, "The human soul is regarded in Browning's poetry", etc. {Chapter II, Section 1 in this etext.} An infallible guide, which would render unnecessary any struggles on man's part, after light and truth, would torpify his powers. And see vv. 582-633 of the present poem.
552. Man takes that title now: that is, of `First, last, and best of things", if, etc. See sections 17 and 18 of `Saul', and stanza 10 of `Rabbi Ben Ezra'. And see the grand dying speech of Paracelsus, which concludes Browning's poem.
554. "A law of nature means nothing to Mr. Browning if it does not mean the immanence of power, and will, and love. He can pass with ready sympathy into the mystical feeling of the East, where in the unclouded sky, in the torrent of noonday light, God is so near `He glows above With scarce an intervention, presses close And palpitatingly, His soul o'er ours.' But the wisdom of a Western `savant' who in his superior intellectuality replaces the will of God by the blind force of nature, seems to Mr. Browning to be science falsely so called, a new ignorance founded upon knowledge, `A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes.' To this effect argues the prophet John in `A Death in the Desert', anticipating with the deep prevision of a dying man the doubts and questionings of modern days. And in the third of those remarkable poems which form the epilogue of the `Dramatis Personae', the whole world rises in the speaker's imagination into one vast spiritual temple, in which voices of singers, and swell of trumpets, and cries of priests are heard going up to God no less truly than in the old Jewish worship, while the face of Christ, instinct with divine will and love, becomes apparent, as that of which all nature is a type or an adumbration." -- Prof. Edward Dowden in his Comparative Study of Browning and Tennyson (Studies in Literature, 1789-1877). --
"But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch He is mere man, and in humility Neither may know
523. Had stopped: would have stopped.
530. the heathen bard's: Aeschylus'.
531. famous play: `Prometheus Bound'.
532. ephemerals': mortals'.
537. Titan's: Prometheus'. --
"I answer, Have ye not to argue out [540] The very primal thesis, plainest law, -- Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, A master to obey, a course to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become? Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, [545] From vain to real, from mistake to fact, From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. How could man have progression otherwise? Before the point was mooted `What is God?' No savage man inquired `What is myself?' [550] Much less replied, `First, last, and best of things.' Man takes that title now if he believes Might can exist with neither will nor love, In God's case -- what he names now Nature's Law -- While in himself he recognizes love [555] No less than might and will: and rightly takes. Since if man prove the sole existent thing Where these combine, whatever their degree, However weak the might or will or love, So they be found there, put in evidence, -- [560] He is as surely higher in the scale Than any might with neither love nor will, As life, apparent in the poorest midge (When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing), Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self -- [565] Given to the nobler midge for resting-place! Thus, man proves best and highest -- God, in fine, And thus the victory leads but to defeat, The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall, His life becomes impossible, which is death. [570]
-- 540-633. All that John says in these verses, in reply to the anticipated objections urged in vv. 514-539, are found, substantially, in several passages in Browning's poetry. See remarks on pp. 36-38 beginning, "The human soul is regarded in Browning's poetry", etc. {Chapter II, Section 1 in this etext.} An infallible guide, which would render unnecessary any struggles on man's part, after light and truth, would torpify his powers. And see vv. 582-633 of the present poem.
552. Man takes that title now: that is, of `First, last, and best of things", if, etc. See sections 17 and 18 of `Saul', and stanza 10 of `Rabbi Ben Ezra'. And see the grand dying speech of Paracelsus, which concludes Browning's poem.
554. "A law of nature means nothing to Mr. Browning if it does not mean the immanence of power, and will, and love. He can pass with ready sympathy into the mystical feeling of the East, where in the unclouded sky, in the torrent of noonday light, God is so near `He glows above With scarce an intervention, presses close And palpitatingly, His soul o'er ours.' But the wisdom of a Western `savant' who in his superior intellectuality replaces the will of God by the blind force of nature, seems to Mr. Browning to be science falsely so called, a new ignorance founded upon knowledge, `A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes.' To this effect argues the prophet John in `A Death in the Desert', anticipating with the deep prevision of a dying man the doubts and questionings of modern days. And in the third of those remarkable poems which form the epilogue of the `Dramatis Personae', the whole world rises in the speaker's imagination into one vast spiritual temple, in which voices of singers, and swell of trumpets, and cries of priests are heard going up to God no less truly than in the old Jewish worship, while the face of Christ, instinct with divine will and love, becomes apparent, as that of which all nature is a type or an adumbration." -- Prof. Edward Dowden in his Comparative Study of Browning and Tennyson (Studies in Literature, 1789-1877). --
"But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch He is mere man, and in humility Neither may know