But there were a few who beheld the triumph of science undismayed, for they saw that her sway could not pass beyond the realm of phenomena, that the failure of the intellect to penetrate behind the mysteries of nature and life must be the saving of religion. Herbert Spencer is among scientists undoubtedly the greatest of this type of mind. Whatever misunderstandings and vituperations he may have been subjected to, from the positivist who thinks him inconsistent for his religious tone to the religionist who dubs him an atheist, the fact still remains that his was the genius that stood out against the advancing flood of materialism saying "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." He it was who declared that underlying phenomena was an Infinite power that transcended all human faculties of imagination, and that this fact was the most certain intuition of the human mind.
So great an upheaval of thought, changing, as it finally has, man's whole outlook upon the universe from one more or less static with fixed codes of morals and standards of art to one that is dynamic and progressive, brought in its wake the consideration of many ethical as well as philosophical problems.
Nothing bears upon the grounds of moral action more disastrously than blind fatalism, and while there have been many evil forms of this doctrine in the past there has probably been none worse than the modern form because it seems to have scientific sanction in the doctrines of the conservation of energy, the persistence of heredity and the survival of the fittest, and tends to positive atrophy of the will. Even wise and thoughtful men now-a-days take such a philosophic view of events that they hesitate to throw in their voice on either side in the solution of a national problem because things are bound to follow the laws of development either way. This is equivalent to admitting that you are simply a heap of burnt out ashes in the furnace of life, and that you have no longer any part to play in the combustion that leads to progress. In the first of 'Ferishtah's Fancies,' a strong plea is made for those human impulses that lead to action. The will to serve the world is the true force from God. Every man, though he be the last link in a chain of causes over which he had no control, can at least have a determining influence upon the direction in which the next link shall be forged. Ferishtah appears upon the scene, himself, a fatalist, leaving himself wholly in God's hands until he is taught by the dream God sent him that man's part is to act as he saw the eagle act, succouring the helpless, not to play the part of the helpless birdlings who were taken care of. Another phase of the same thought is touched upon in 'A Camel Driver.' The discussion turns upon punishment and the point is, if, as Ferishtah declares, the sinner is not to be punished eternally, then why should man trouble himself to punish him. The answer amounts to this. Man must regard sin from the human point of view as something evil and to be got rid of and must, therefore, will to work for its annihilation. It follows then that the sinner should be punished as that is a means for teaching him to cease sinning.
Another doctrine upon which the Nineteenth Century belief in progress as the law of life has set its seal is that of the pursuit of happiness, or the striving for the greatest good of the whole number including oneself. With this Browning shows himself in full sympathy in 'Two Camels,' wherein Ferishtah contends that only through the development of individual happiness and the experiencing of many forms of joyousness can one help others to happiness and joyousness, while in 'Plot Culture,' the enjoyment of human emotion as a means of developing the soul is emphasized.
The relations of good and evil have also had to be re-considered in the light of Nineteenth Century thought, the dualism of the past not being compatible with the evolutionary doctrine that good and evil are relative, a phrase which we sometimes forget must be understood in two ways:--first, that good and evil are relative to the state of society in which they exist, and what may be good in one phase of society, may become evil in a more developed phase. Second, were it not for evil, we should never be able to appreciate the superiority of good and so to work for good, and in working for it to bring about progress. To his pupil worried over the problem of evil Ferishtah points out in 'Mihrab Shah' that evil in the form of bodily suffering has given rise to the beautiful sentiments of pity and sympathy. But though it be recognized that good comes of evil, shall evil be encouraged? No! Ferishtah declares, Man bound by man's conditions is obliged to estimate as "fair or foul Right, wrong, good, evil, what man's faculty adjudges such," therefore the man will do all he can to relieve the suffering of poor Mihrab Shah with a fig-plaster. The answers, then, that Browning gives to the ethical problems of the century growing out of the acceptance of modern scientific doctrines, are, in brief, that man shall use that will-power of which he feels himself possessed, and which really distinguishes him from the brute creation, in working against whatever appears to him evil; while the good for which he shall work is the greatest happiness of all.
What of the philosophical doctrines to which Browning gives expression in the remaining poems of the group? We find it insisted upon in 'Cherries', 'The Sun', in 'A Bean Stripe also Apple Eating', and especially in that remarkable poem 'A Pillar at Sebzevar' that knowledge fails. Knowledge the golden is but lacquered ignorance, as gain to be mistrusted. Curiously, enough, this contention of Browning's has been the cause of most of the criticisms against him as a philosopher, yet as far as I have been able to discover, there has been no deep thinker of this century, and there have been many in other centuries, who has not held in some form or another the opinion that intellect was unable to solve the mysterious problems of the universe. Even the metaphysicians who build very wonderful air castles on à priori ideas declare that these ideas cannot be matters of mere intellectual perception, but must be intuitions of the higher reason. Browning, however, does not rest in the assertion that the intellect fails. He draws immense comfort from this failure of knowledge. Though it is to be distrusted as gain, it is not to be mistrusted as means to gain. "Friend" quoth Ferishtah in 'A Pillar at Sebzevar'
"As gain--mistrust it! Not as means to gain:
Lacquer we learn by: cast in firing-pot,
We learn,--when what seemed ore assayed proves dross--
Surelier true gold's worth, guess how purity