“Man, once descried, imprints for ever
  His presence on all lifeless things.”

And how is this interpretation achieved?  By penetrating behind force, power, mechanism, and even intelligence, thinks the poet, to a purpose which is benevolent, a reason which is all embracing and rooted in love.  The magnificent failure of Paracelsus came from missing this last step.  His transcendent hunger for knowledge was not satisfied, not because human knowledge is essentially an illusion or mind disease, but because his knowledge did not reach the final truth of things, which is love.  For love alone makes the heart wise, to know the secret of all being.  This is the ultimate hypothesis in the light of which alone man can catch a glimpse of the general direction and intent of the universal movement in the world and man.  Dying, Paracelsus, taught by Aprile, caught a glimpse of this elemental “love-force,” in which alone lies the clue to every problem, and the promise of the final satisfaction of the human spirit.  Failing in this knowledge, man may know many things, but nothing truly; for all such knowledge stays with outward shows.  It is love alone that puts man in the right relation to his fellows and to the world, and removes the distortion which fills life with sorrow, and makes it

            “Only a scene
  Of degradation, ugliness and tears,
  The record of disgraces best forgotten,
  A sullen page in human chronicles
  Fit to erase."[A]

[Footnote A:  Paracelsus.]

But in the light of love, man “sees a good in evil, and a hope in ill success,” and recognizes that mankind are

  “All with a touch of nobleness, despite
  Their error, upward tending all though weak;
  Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
  But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
  And do their best to climb and get to him."[B]

[Footnote B:  Ibid.]

“All this I knew not,” adds Paracelsus, “and I failed.  Let men take the lesson and press this lamp of love, ’God’s lamp, close to their breasts’; its splendour, soon or late, will pierce the gloom,” and show that the universe is a transparent manifestation of His beneficence.

CHAPTER VII.

BROWNING’S IDEALISM, AND ITS PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION.

  “Master, explain this incongruity! 
  When I dared question, ’It is beautiful,
  But is it true?’ thy answer was, ’In truth
  Lives Beauty.’"[A]

[Footnote A:  Shah Abbas.]