Browning and Dogma: Seven Lectures on Browning's Attitude Towards Dogmatic ReligionNaish, Ethel M.
Religion
Browning and Dogma: Seven Lectures on Browning's Attitude Towards Dogmatic Religion
Naish, Ethel M.
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889 -- Religion
In this passage of _La Saisiaz_ recurs also that suggestion so
characteristic of Browning--introduced dramatically in _Easter Day_, to be
met with again later in the expositions nominally ascribed to
Ferishtah--the theory of the adaptation of the entire universe, as known
to man, to the needs and development of the individual soul. As in _Easter
Day_ is depicted by the Vision the work of
Absolute omnipotence,
Able its judgments to dispense
To the whole race, as every one
Were its sole object; (_E. D._, ll. 662-665.)
so again in _A Camel-driver_ is emphasized the individual character of the
final Judgment:
Thou and God exist--
So think!--for certain: think the mass--mankind--
Disparts, disperses, leaves thyself alone!
Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,--
Thee and no other,--stand or fall by them!
That is the part for thee: _regard all else
For what it may be--Time's illusion_.
Similarly here the entire scheme of life is to be regarded from the
individual standpoint; all outside the "narrow hem" of personal experience
can be but the result of surmise. Therefore
Solve the problem: "From thine apprehended scheme of things, deduce
Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse
In each good or evil issue! nor miscalculate alike
Counting one the other in the final balance, which to strike,
Soul was born and life allotted: ay, the show of things unfurled
For thy summing-up and judgment,--thine, no other mortal's world!"
(ll. 287-292.)
With the acceptance, however, of the doctrine, "His own world for every
mortal," recurs again the disturbing reflection inevitable to the
contemplation of that world whether in its personal relation, or as a
training-ground for "some other mortal." Were the extreme transitoriness
and the preponderance of pain indispensable factors in the scheme of
instruction?
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 God 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.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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