Take no jot more Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad! Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought Deduction to it. (ll. 239-245.) In other words, the ever-recurring conflict between flesh and spirit. In human nature, as at present constituted, one is bound to suffer at the expense of the other; the sound mind in the sound body is unfortunately a counsel of perfection too rarely attainable in practical life. The poet is conscious of the growing vitality of the spirit as well as that of the intellect (although he does not admittedly recognize that this is so, his use of the term "soul" being seemingly synonymous with "intellect"), the decreasing power of the flesh. In vain the struggle to Supply fresh oil to life, Repair the waste of age and sickness. (ll. 248-249.) Thus the fate of the man of genius, of keener perceptions, of wider capacities for enjoyment, becomes proportionately more grievous than that of the less complex nature of the man of action. Say rather that my fate is deadlier still, In this, that every day my sense of joy Grows more acute, my soul (intensified By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen; While every day my hairs fall more and more, My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase-- The horror quickening still from year to year, The consummation coming past escape When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy. (ll. 309-317.) A recognition of the emptiness of life, necessarily hopeless when thus viewed in relation to its sensuous and intellectual possibilities only. To these things the end must come. Thus Browning leads us on, as so frequently elsewhere, to an admission of _the inevitableness of immortality_. An estimate of life curiously opposed to this simple pagan aspect is that afforded by the conception of _Paracelsus_, a poem containing no small element of the mysticism which offered so powerful an attraction to its author. In a familiar passage at the close of the First Section we find Paracelsus describing the methods he proposes to pursue in his search for truth; truth which he deems existent within the soul of man, and acquired by no external influence. Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception--which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without.[28] * * * * * See this soul of ours! How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled By age and waste, set free at last by death.[29]