Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher | Page 2

OF THE FAILURE OF
KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER X.
THE HEART AND THE HEAD.--LOVE AND REASON

CHAPTER XI.
CONCLUSION

ROBERT BROWNING.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
"Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, Und grün des Lebens goldner
Baum." (Faust.)

There is a saying of Hegel's, frequently quoted, that "a great man
condemns the world to the task of explaining him." The condemnation
is a double one, and it generally falls heaviest on the great man himself,
who has to submit to explanation; and, probably, the last refinement of
this species of cruelty is to expound a poet. I therefore begin with an
apology in both senses of the term. I acknowledge that no commentator
on art has a right to be heard, if he is not aware of the subordinate and
temporary nature of his office. At the very best he is only a guide to the
beautiful object, and he must fall back in silence so soon as he has led
his company into its presence. He may perhaps suggest "the line of
vision," or fix the point of view, from which we can best hope to do
justice to the artist's work, by appropriating his intention and
comprehending his idea; but if he seeks to serve the ends of art, he will
not attempt to do anything more.
In order to do even this successfully, it is essential that every judgment
passed should be exclusively ruled by the principles which govern art.
"Fine art is not real art till it is free"; that is, till its value is recognized
as lying wholly within itself. And it is not, unfortunately, altogether
unnecessary to insist that, so far from enhancing the value of an artist's
work, we only degrade it into mere means, subordinate it to uses alien,
and therefore antagonistic to its perfection, if we try to show that it
gives pleasure, or refinement, or moral culture. There is no doubt that
great poetry has all these uses, but the reader can enjoy them only on
condition of forgetting them; for they are effects that follow the sense
of its beauty. Art, morality, religion, is each supreme in its own sphere;
the beautiful is not more beautiful because it is also moral, nor is a
painting great because its subject is religious. It is true that their
spheres overlap, and art is never at its best except when it is a beautiful
representation of the good; nevertheless the points of view of the artist
and of the ethical teacher are quite different, and consequently also the
elements within which they work and the truth they reveal.
In attempting, therefore, to discover Robert Browning's philosophy of
life, I do not pretend that my treatment of him is adequate. Browning is,
first of all, a poet; it is only as a poet that he can be finally judged; and
the greatness of a poet is to be measured by the extent to which his

writings are a revelation of what is beautiful.
I undertake a different and a humbler task, conscious of its limitations,
and aware that I can hardly avoid doing some violence to the artist.
What I shall seek in the poet's writings is not beauty, but truth; and
although truth is beautiful, and beauty is truth, still the poetic and
philosophic interpretation of life are not to be confused. Philosophy
must separate the matter from the form. Its synthesis comes through
analysis, and analysis is destructive of beauty, as it is of all life. Art,
therefore, resists the violence of the critical methods of philosophy, and
the feud between them, of which Plato speaks, will last through all time.
The beauty of form and the music of speech which criticism destroys,
and to which philosophy is, at the best, indifferent, are essential to
poetry. When we leave them out of account we miss the ultimate secret
of poetry, for they cling to the meaning and penetrate it with their
charm. Thought and its expression are inseparable in poetry, as they
never are in philosophy; hence, in the former, the loss of the expression
is the loss of truth. The pure idea that dwells in a poem is suffused in
the poetic utterance, as sunshine breaks into beauty in the mist, as life
beats and blushes in the flesh, or as an impassioned thought breathes in
a thinker's face.
But, although art and philosophy are supreme, each in its own realm,
and neither can be subordinated to the uses of the other, they may help
each other. They are independent, but not rival powers of the world of
mind. Not only is the interchange of truth possible between them; but
each may show and give to the other all its treasures, and be none the
poorer itself. "It is in works