[Footnote A:  La Saisiaz.]

The first result of this subjective view of knowledge is clearly enough seen by the poet.  He is well aware that his convictions regarding the high matters of human destiny are valid only for himself.

            “Only for myself I speak,
  Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak."[B]

[Footnote B:  Ibid.]

Experience, as he interprets it, that is, present consciousness, “this moment’s me and mine,” is too narrow a basis for any universal or objective conclusion.  So far as his own inner experience of pain and pleasure goes,

“All—­for myself—­seems ordered wise and well
Inside it,—­what reigns outside, who can tell?"[A]

[Footnote A:  Francis Furini.]

But as to the actual world, he can have no opinion, nor, from the good and evil that apparently play around him, can he deduce either

“Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse
In each good or evil issue."[B]

[Footnote B:  La Saisiaz.]

The moral government of the world is a subject, regarding which we are doomed to absolute ignorance.  A theory that it is ruled by the “prince of the power of the air” has just as much, and just as little, validity as the more ordinary view held by religious people.  Who needs be told

            “The space
  Which yields thee knowledge—­do its bounds embrace
  Well-willing and wise-working, each at height? 
  Enough:  beyond thee lies the infinite—­
  Back to thy circumscription!"[C]

[Footnote C:  Francis Furini.]

And our ignorance of God, and the world, and ourselves is matched by a similar ignorance regarding moral matters.

  “Ignorance overwraps his moral sense,
  Winds him about, relaxing, as it wraps,
  So much and no more than lets through perhaps
  The murmured knowledge—­’ Ignorance exists.’"[D]

[Footnote D:  Ibid.]

We cannot be certain even of the distinction and conflict of good and evil in the world.  They, too, and the apparent choice between them to which man is continually constrained, may be mere illusions—­phenomena of the individual consciousness.  What remains, then?  Nothing but to “wait.”

  “Take the joys and bear the sorrows—­neither with extreme concern! 
  Living here means nescience simply:  ’tis next life that helps to
        learn."[A]

[Footnote A:  La Saisiaz.]

It is hardly necessary to enter upon any detailed criticism of such a theory of knowledge as this, which is proffered by the poet.  It is well known by all those who are in some degree acquainted with the history of philosophy—­and it will be easily seen by all who have any critical acumen—­that it leads directly into absolute scepticism.  And absolute scepticism is easily shown to be self-contradictory.