“But if his heart had prompted to break loose
  And mar the measure?  Why, we must submit,
  And thank the chance that brought him safe so far. 
  Will he repeat the prodigy?  Perhaps. 
  Can he teach others how to quit themselves,
  Show why this step was right while that were wrong? 
  How should he?  ’Ask your hearts as I asked mine,
  And get discreetly through the morrice too;
  If your hearts misdirect you,—­quit the stage,
  And make amends,—­be there amends to make.’"[A]

[Footnote A:  The Ring and the Book—­The Pope, 1916-1927.]

If the heart proved to Caponsacchi a guide to all that is good and glorious, “the Abate, second in the suite,” puts in the testimony of another experience:  “His heart answered to another tune.”

  “I have my taste too, and tread no such step! 
  You choose the glorious life, and may for me! 
  I like the lowest of life’s appetites,—­
  So you judge—­but the very truth of joy
  To my own apprehension which decides."[B]

[Footnote B:  Ibid., 1932-1936.]

Mere emotion is thus an insecure guide to conduct, for its authority can be equally cited in support of every course of life.  No one can say to his neighbour, “Thou art wrong.”  Every impulse is right to the individual who has it, and so long as he has it. De gustibus non disputandum.  Without a universal criterion there is no praise or blame.

  “Call me knave and you get yourself called fool! 
  I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;
  Attain these ends by force, guile:  hypocrite,
  To-day, perchance to-morrow recognized
  The rational man, the type of common-sense."[C]

[Footnote C:  Ibid., 1937-1941.]

This poem which, both in its moral wisdom and artistic worth, marks the high tide of Browning’s poetic insight, while he is not as yet concerned with the defence of any theory or the discussion of any abstract question, contrasts strongly with the later poems, where knowledge is dissembling ignorance, faith is blind trust, and love is a mere impulse of the heart.  Having failed to meet the difficulties of reflection, the poet turned upon the intellect.  Knowledge becomes to him an offence, and to save his faith he plucked out his right eye and entered into the kingdom maimed.  In Rabbi Ben Ezra the ascent into another life is triumphant, like that of a conqueror bearing with him the spoils of earth; but in the later poems he escapes with a bare belief, and the loss of all his rich possessions of knowledge, like a shipwrecked mariner whose goods have been thrown overboard.  His philosophy was a treacherous ally to his faith.

But there is another consideration which shows that the poet, as artist, recognized the need of giving to reason a larger function than seems to be possible according to the theory in his later works.  In the early poems there is no hint of the doctrine that demonstrative knowledge of the good, and of the necessity of its law, would destroy freedom.  On the contrary, there are suggestions which point to the opposite doctrine, according to which knowledge is the condition of freedom.