A: Francis Furini.
His practical maxim was
"Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then, and trust
As wholly love allied to ignorance!
There lies thy truth and safety."B
B: A Pillar of Sebzevar.
All phenomena must, in some way or other, be reconciled by the poet with the fundamental and indubitable fact of the progressive moral life of man. For the fundamental presupposition which a man makes, is necessarily his criterion of knowledge, and it determines the truth or illusoriness of all other opinions whatsoever.
Now, Browning held, not only that no certain knowledge is attainable by man, but also that such certainty is incompatible with moral life. Absolute knowledge would, he contends, lift man above the need and the possibility of making the moral choice, which is our supreme business on earth. Man can be good or evil, only on condition of being in absolute uncertainty regarding the true meaning of the facts of nature and the phenomena of life.
This somewhat strange doctrine finds the most explicit and full expression in La Saisiaz. "Fancy," amongst the concessions it demands from "Reason," claims that man should know—not merely surmise or fear—that every action done in this life awaits its proper and necessary meed in the next.