Other modern thinkers, notably Schleiermacher in Germany and Shaftsbury in England, have placed the basis of religious truth in feeling. The idea is thus not a new one. Yet in Browning's treatment of it the conception has taken on new life, partly because of the intensity of conviction with which it is expounded in these later poems, and partly because of its having been so closely knit into the scientific thought of the century. Optimistically the thought is finally rounded out in "A Bean Stripe also Apple Eating," in which Ferishtah argues that life in spite of the evil in it seems to him on the whole good. He cannot believe that evil is not meant to serve a good purpose since he is so sure that God is infinite in love. From all this it will be seen that Browning accepts with Spencerians the negative proof of God growing out of the failure of intellect to grasp the realities underlying all phenomena, but adds to it the positive proof based upon emotion. The true basis of belief is the intuition of God that comes from the direct revelation of feeling in the human heart, which has been at once the motive force of the search for God and the basis of a conception of the nature of God. It was a stroke of genius on the part of the poet to present such problems in Persian guise, for Persia stands in Zoroastrianism for the dualism which Ferishtah with his progressive spirit decries in his recognition of the part evil plays in the development of good, and through Mahometanism for the Fatalism Ferishtah learned to cast from him. The Persian atmosphere is preserved throughout not only by the introduction constantly of Persian allusions traceable to the great Persian epic, "The Shah Nameh," but by the telling of fables in the Persian manner to point the morals intended. With the exception of the first Fancy, derived from a fable of Bidpai's, we have the poet's own word that all the others are inventions of his own. These clever stories make the poems lively reading in spite of their ethical content. Ferishtah is drawn with strong strokes. Wise and clever he stands before us, reminding us at times of Socrates--never at a loss for an answer no matter what bothersome questions his pupils may propound.