mean that evil is nothing.  It is resistance; it is negative; it does oppose the good; although its opposition is finally overcome.  If it did not, if evil were unreal, there would be no possibility of calling forth the moral potency of man, and the moral life would be a figment.  But these two conditions of the moral life—­on the one hand, that the evil of the world must be capable of being overcome and is there for the purpose of being overcome, and that it is unreal except as a means to the good; and, on the other hand, that evil must be actually opposed to the good, if the good is to have any meaning,—­cannot, Browning thinks, be reconciled with each other.  It is manifest that the intellect of man cannot, at the same time, regard evil as both real and unreal.  It must assert the one and deny the other; or else we must regard its testimony as altogether untrustworthy.  But the first alternative is destructive of the moral consciousness.  Moral life is alike impossible whether we deny or assert the real existence of evil.  The latter alternative stultifies knowledge, and leaves all the deeper concerns of life—­the existence of good and evil, the reality of the distinction between them, the existence of God, the moral governance of the world, the destiny of man—­in a state of absolute uncertainty.  We must reject the testimony either of the heart or of the head.

Browning, as we have seen, unhesitatingly adopts the latter alternative.  He remains loyal to the deliverances of his moral consciousness and accepts as equally valid, beliefs which the intellect finds to be self-contradictory:  holding that knowledge on such matters is impossible.  And he rejects this knowledge, not only because our thoughts are self-contradictory in themselves, but because the failure of a speculative solution of these problems is necessary to morality.  Clear, convincing, demonstrative knowledge would destroy morality; and the fact that the power to attain such knowledge has been withheld from us is to be regarded rather as an indication of the beneficence of God, who has not held even ignorance to be too great a price for man to pay for goodness.

Knowledge is not the fit atmosphere for morality.  It is faith and not reason, hope and trust but not certainty, that lend vigour to the good life.  We may believe, and rejoice in the belief, that the absolute good is fulfilling itself in all things, and that even the miseries of life are really its refracted rays—­the light that gains in splendour by being broken.  But we must not, and, indeed, cannot ascend from faith to knowledge.  The heart may trust, and must trust, if it faithfully listens to its own natural voice; but reason must not demonstrate.  Ignorance on the side of intellect, faith on the side of the emotions; distrust of knowledge, absolute confidence in love; such is the condition of man’s highest welfare:  it is only thus that the purpose of his life, and of the world which is his instrument, can be achieved.