Browning’s poems scientific in its analysis realise the meaning of what they say?  One is tempted to think that they know a scientific analysis when they see it as little as they know a good poem.  The one supreme difference between the scientific method and the artistic method is, roughly speaking, simply this—­that a scientific statement means the same thing wherever and whenever it is uttered, and that an artistic statement means something entirely different, according to the relation in which it stands to its surroundings.  The remark, let us say, that the whale is a mammal, or the remark that sixteen ounces go to a pound, is equally true, and means exactly the same thing, whether we state it at the beginning of a conversation or at the end, whether we print it in a dictionary or chalk it up on a wall.  But if we take some phrase commonly used in the art of literature—­such a sentence, for the sake of example, as “the dawn was breaking”—­the matter is quite different.  If the sentence came at the beginning of a short story, it might be a mere descriptive prelude.  If it were the last sentence in a short story, it might be poignant with some peculiar irony or triumph.  Can any one read Browning’s great monologues and not feel that they are built up like a good short story, entirely on this principle of the value of language arising from its arrangement.  Take such an example as “Caliban upon Setebos,” a wonderful poem designed to describe the way in which a primitive nature may at once be afraid of its gods and yet familiar with them.  Caliban in describing his deity starts with a more or less natural and obvious parallel between the deity and himself, carries out the comparison with consistency and an almost revolting simplicity, and ends in a kind of blasphemous extravaganza of anthropomorphism, basing his conduct not merely on the greatness and wisdom, but also on the manifest weaknesses and stupidities, of the Creator of all things.  Then suddenly a thunderstorm breaks over Caliban’s island, and the profane speculator falls flat upon his face—­

    “Lo!  ’Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 
    ’Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
    Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month
    One little mess of whelks, so he may ’scape!”

Surely it would be very difficult to persuade oneself that this thunderstorm would have meant exactly the same thing if it had occurred at the beginning of “Caliban upon Setebos.”  It does not mean the same thing, but something very different; and the deduction from this is the curious fact that Browning is an artist, and that consequently his processes of thought are not “scientific in their precision and analysis.”