Part 18 (1/2)

Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die?

Needs then groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy?

(ll. 311-312.)

Certainly personal experience has resulted in the conclusion:

Howsoever came my fate, Sorrow did and joy did nowise,--life well weighed,--preponderate!

(ll. 333-334.)

In the discussion which follows (ll. 335-348) the fact of the existence of these evils is employed to enforce the admission of the necessity of a future life. It is in fact the earlier argument (ll. 235, _et seq._) repeated and elaborated. How are the existing conditions of life to be reconciled with the belief in the over-ruling Providence of a G.o.d whose name is synonymous with goodness, wisdom, and power? Here each attribute is dealt with categorically--Was it proof of the divine Goodness that within the limits of the poet's personal experience

The good within [his] range Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change? (ll. 337-338.)

Again could it be deemed a token of the divine Wisdom that

Becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance?

(ll. 339-340.)

Finally, seeing that Power must within itself include the force known as Will, could that indeed rank as omnipotence, which was incapable of securing for man even the enjoyment of life possessed by the worm which, on the hypothesis of the non-existence of a future world, becomes ”man's fellow-creature,” man too being thus but the creature of an hour? Since with the loss of his immortal destiny pa.s.ses also the reason (according to Browning's reiterated theory) of his imperfection as compared with the more complete physical perfection of the lower world of animal life. If, then, such a consummation is the sole outcome of the Creator's work the conclusion is inevitable, that the Goodness, Wisdom, and Power ascribed to Him must be limited in range and capacity. Thus again the premise originally accepted as a basis of argument has to be rejected--a G.o.d possessing merely human attributes is no G.o.d. But once more also, though in stronger terms, the conclusion of ll. 242-243:

Only grant a second life, I acquiesce In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst a.s.saults Triumph, not defeat, a.s.sured that loss so much the more exalts Gain about to be. (ll. 358-361.)

Thus all experience fairly considered goes to prove the necessity for a future life; and with the hope of such a future is closely interwoven the need also for reunion with those who have already tested the grounds of their belief:

Grant me (once again) a.s.surance we shall each meet each some day.

Worst were best, defeat were triumph utter loss were utmost gain.

(ll. 387-389.)

_B._ Nevertheless, the soul refuses even yet to accept, without that which it deems reasonable proof, the justice of its intuitions and of its hopes arising from experience. It will a.s.sume the position of arbitrator in the debate which it permits between the sometime opposing forces of Reason and Fancy, as to the results of an acceptance of that belief, for an a.s.surance of the truth of which it yearns.

_Fancy._ To the facts already admitted as the basis of argument Fancy may, therefore, add a third, ”that after body dies soul lives again.”

_Reason._ In accepting the challenge to employ these three facts--G.o.d, the soul, a future life--in a rational development of the present phase of existence, Reason would reply that deductions from experience suggest that the future life must necessarily prove an advance on the old. This being so, the most prudent course is obviously that which would take, without delay, the step leading from the lower to the higher; always allowing that there is no existent law restrictive of man's free will in this matter.

What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light? (l. 441.)

_Fancy._ The deterrent is to be found in the suggestion by Fancy of the law rendering penal ”voluntary pa.s.sage from this life to that.”

He shall find--say, h.e.l.l to punish who in aught curtails the term.

(l. 463.)

_Reason._ And what influence upon life it must be asked will this new knowledge exert? Life, says Reason, would thus be reduced to a condition of stagnation. The absolute certainty involved in this exact knowledge of the future would stultify action in the present. A result similar to that which, according to Kars.h.i.+sh, was attained in the case of Lazarus. The things of this world matter not in view of an ever-present realization of Eternity. The use of faith is at an end as ”the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” since all is clear, definite and, further still, unalterable to the inward vision.

_Fancy._ Again Fancy interposes with the suggestion that this equal realization of future and present must be accompanied by an appreciation of the worth of life temporal and its opportunities, of the eternal import of the deeds wrought in the flesh. Thus the future life completely revealed would not, as Reason holds, supersede the uses of this, but would serve rather as an incentive to action in the present, on the a.s.sumption that the virtual reward of performance is reserved for the after-time.

_Reason._ The final position is then examined by Reason. To the original premises--the existence of the soul, an intelligent being, and of a G.o.d, the author of an intelligible universe in which man's lot is cast--has been added the certainty of a future world, but a world into which man may not pa.s.s until his allotted term has been fulfilled on earth. Further, that in this world to come are to be dealt out allotments of happiness or misery in exact relative proportion to the deeds accomplished during the period of mortal life. That by laws as unerring and relentless as those of Nature's code, pain will follow evil-doing, pleasure will succeed acts of self-devotion to that which is esteemed goodness and truth. Absolute certainty in all things spiritual being thus established, free will becomes but a name, and the probationary character of life is at an end.

Here again a reminiscence of the discussion contained in the early stanzas of _Easter Day_ when the Second Speaker suggests that faith may be

A touchstone for G.o.d's purposes, Even as ourselves conceive of them.

Could he acquit us or condemn For holding what no hand can loose, Rejecting when we can't but choose?