he may have that all things work together for good.  It is right that he should nourish the faith that the antagonism of evil with good in the world is only an illusion; but that faith must stop short of the complete conviction that knowledge would bring.  When, therefore, the hypothesis of universal love is confronted with the evils of life, and we ask how it can be maintained in the face of the manifold miseries everywhere apparent, the poet answers, “You do not know, and cannot know, whether they are evils or not.  Your knowledge remains at the surface of things.  You cannot fit them into their true place, or pronounce upon their true purpose and character; for you see only a small arc of the complete circle of being.  Wait till you see more, and, in the meantime, hope!”

  “Why faith—­but to lift the load,
    To leaven the lump, where lies
  Mind prostrate through knowledge owed
    To the loveless Power it tries
  To withstand, how vain!"[A]

[Footnote A:  Reverie—­Asolando.]

And, if we reply in turn, that this necessary ignorance leaves as little room for his scheme of love as it does for its opposite, he again answers:  “Not so!  I appeal from the intellect, which is detected as incompetent, to the higher court of the moral consciousness.  And there I find the ignorance to be justified:  for it is the instrument of a higher purpose, a means whereby what is best is gained, namely, Love.”

    “My curls were crowned
  In youth with knowledge,—­off, alas, crown slipped
  Next moment, pushed by better knowledge still
  Which nowise proved more constant; gain, to-day,
  Was toppling loss to-morrow, lay at last
  —­Knowledge, the golden?—­lacquered ignorance! 
  As gain—­mistrust it!  Not as means to gain: 
  Lacquer we learn by:  ... 
  The prize is in the process:  knowledge means
  Ever-renewed assurance by defeat
  That victory is somehow still to reach,
  But love is victory, the prize itself: 
  Love—­trust to!  Be rewarded for the trust
  In trust’s mere act."[A]

[Footnote A:  A Pillar at Sebzevar.]

Now, in order to complete our examination of this theory, we must follow the poet in his attempt to escape from the testimony of the intellect to that of the heart.  In order to make the most of the latter, we find that Browning, especially in his last work, tends to withdraw his accusation of utter incompetence on the part of the intellect.  He only tends to do so, it is true.  He is tolerably consistent in asserting that we know our own emotions and the phenomena of our own consciousness; but he is not consistent in his account of our knowledge, or ignorance, of external things.  On the whole, he asserts that we know nothing of them.  But in Asolando he seems to imply that the evidence of a loveless power in the world, permitting evil, is irresistible.[A] To say the least, the testimony of the intellect, such as it is, is more clear and convincing with regard to evil than it is with regard to good.  Within the sphere of phenomena, to which the intellect is confined, there seems to be, instead of a benevolent purpose, a world ruled by a power indifferent to the triumph of evil over good, and either “loveless” or unintelligent.