Whilst the Rabbi esteems himself as clay in the hands of the potter, the Greek admits no personal pride in the multiplicity or magnitude of his gifts. All alike he refers to "the gods whose gift alone it is," continuing the reflection-- Which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly, or depreciate? It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? (ll. 152-156.) So far with Ben Ezra. But where the Rabbi can say with confidence Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute: a god though in the germ. (xiii.) With Arthur I pass _but shall not die_, merely shall I Thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new (xiv.) for the Greek is no such confidence possible. He, too, shall pass--"I pass too surely." His hope, if hope it be, lies in the development of a humanity of the future which shall have profited by the experience of its individual members in the past--"Let at least truth stay!" Incidentally is introduced in this section of the poem a reference to the yearning of the correspondent of Protus for some revelation of the gods to be made through man to men. Through an Incarnation alone can the purposes of Zeus in creation be fully and comprehensibly revealed to man. Truth may indeed stay, but its revelation is progressive in character; according thus with the nature of the human intelligence (a favourite theme with Browning). For any more complete realization of Truth absolute, a direct revelation of the Deity is essential. God, in man, may show that which it is possible for men to become, hence the design of Zeus in placing him upon earth. So had Cleon "imaged," and "written out the fiction," That he or other god descended here And, once for all, showed simultaneously What, in its nature, never can be shown, Piecemeal or in succession;--showed, I say, The worth both absolute and relative Of all his children from the birth of time, His instruments for all appointed work. (ll. 115-122.) Through this revelation, too, may be proved the immanence of the Deity, a doctrine even now accepted by the Greek. The speaker on the Areopagus[24] needed only to remind his hearers of this their belief, when he assured them that the God of whom he preached was not one who dwelt in temples made with hands--but is "not far from every one of us," since "in him we live and move and have our being." Even, in the words of Aratus, "we are his offspring." But this theory of an incarnation which "certain slaves" were teaching in a fuller, more satisfying form, than that presented by the imagination of the Greek philosopher, might be to him but "a dream": his sole hope rested, as we have seen, on an advance of the race through the higher development of individual members.