What of the philosophical doctrines to which Browning gives expression in the remaining poems of the group? We find it insisted upon in 'Cherries', 'The Sun', in 'A Bean Stripe also Apple Eating', and especially in that remarkable poem 'A Pillar at Sebzevar' that knowledge fails. Knowledge the golden is but lacquered ignorance, as gain to be mistrusted. Curiously, enough, this contention of Browning's has been the cause of most of the criticisms against him as a philosopher, yet as far as I have been able to discover, there has been no deep thinker of this century, and there have been many in other centuries, who has not held in some form or another the opinion that intellect was unable to solve the mysterious problems of the universe. Even the metaphysicians who build very wonderful air castles on _a priori_ ideas declare that these ideas cannot be matters of mere intellectual perception, but must be intuitions of the higher reason. Browning, however, does not rest in the assertion that the intellect fails. He draws immense comfort from this failure of knowledge. Though it is to be distrusted as gain, it is not to be mistrusted as means to gain. "Friend" quoth Ferishtah in 'A Pillar at Sebzevar' "As gain--mistrust it! Not as means to gain: Lacquer we learn by: cast in firing-pot, We learn,--when what seemed ore assayed proves dross-- Surelier true gold's worth, guess how purity I' the lode were precious could one light on ore Clarified up to test of crucible. The prize is in the process: knowledge means Ever-renewed assurance by defeat That victory is somehow still to reach." For men with minds of the type of Spencer's, this negative assurance of an infinite ever on before is sufficient, but human beings, as a rule, will not rest satisfied in such cold abstractions. Though Job said thousands of years ago "Who by searching can find out God," mankind still continues to search.