This poem, like "Aristophanes' Apology," belongs in spirit more than in form to its particular group. Each contains a dialogue, and in the present case we have a defence, though not a specious one of the judgment attained
We recognize the cogito ergo sum of Descartes.
The narrator, in a parenthetic statement, imputes a doctrine to St. John, which is an unconscious approach on Mr. Browning's part to the "animism" of some ancient and mediæval philosophies. It carries the idea of the Trinity into the individual life, by subjecting this to three souls, the lowest of which reigns over the body, and is that which "Does:" the second and third being respectively that which "Knows" and "Is." The reference to the "glossa of Theotypas" is part of the fiction.