Browning and Dogma Part 3

So far with Ben Ezra. But where the Rabbi can say with confidence

Thence shall I pa.s.s, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute: a G.o.d though in the germ. (xiii.)

With Arthur

I pa.s.s _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 pa.s.s--"I pa.s.s 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 G.o.ds 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. G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sured them that the G.o.d 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.

No dream, let us hope, That years and days, the summers and the springs, Follow each other with unwaning powers. (ll. 127-129.)

III. With line 157 we pa.s.s to a consideration of the more intensely personal question, yet one involving in its answer much that has gone before; the question put by Protus in the letter accompanying his gifts: is death (which king and poet alike esteem the end of all things), is death to the _man of thought_ so fearful a thing in contemplation as it must be to the _man of action_? To Protus, the man of action, who has enjoyed life to the full, whose portion has been wealth, honour, dignity, power, physical and mental appreciation of all the privileges attendant on his station and environment; to the possessor of life such as this death, as not an interruption merely, but as an end to all joy, all gratification, must perforce bring with it nothing but horror. The horror which Browning represents elsewhere as falling momentarily upon the Venetian audience listening to the weird strains of Galuppi's music,[25]

when an interpolated discord suggests to the onlooker the question, "What of soul is left, I wonder?" when the pleasures of life are ended? and the answer is given, with its note of hopeless finality, "Dust and ashes." To Protus, too, recurs the answer, "Dust and ashes." Although his work as a ruler has been of that character which has caused him to seek the intellectual and moral, as well as the material welfare of his people (so much we saw Cleon recognizing in his introductory message), yet he regretfully, and probably unjustly, in a moment of depression, estimates his legacy to posterity as "nought."

My life, Complete and whole now in its power and joy, Dies altogether with my brain and arm, Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?

The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, Set on the promontory which I named.

And that--some supple courtier of my heir Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps, To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. (ll. 171-179.)

(An estimate suggesting a truth of practical experience: schemes of absolute government not infrequently bearing within themselves the seeds of their own decay: the "sceptred arm," originally the symbol of its strength, becoming in good sooth the chief agent in the work of destruction.)

To Protus, whose life has been thus spent in activity, forgetfulness seems the one thing most terrible of contemplation. He must pa.s.s, and in the words of the dying Alcestis, "who is dead is nought"; of him shall it be said, "He who once was, now is nothing." But for the man whose life "stays in the poems men shall sing, the pictures men shall study," for him may not death prove triumph, since "_thou_ dost not go"? Yet Cleon deals with the question as might have been antic.i.p.ated. Genius, even in its highest form, culture, art, learning, alike fail to satisfy the restless soul, tossed upon the waves of uncertainty, unanch.o.r.ed by any reasonable hope for the future. All these fail where the satisfaction derivative from wealth and power honourably wielded has already failed. The genius ruling in the kingdom of intellectual life has no consolation to offer the sovereign ruling the outer life--the material and moral welfare--of his subjects. Poet and tyrant alike bow before the inevitable approach of death, taking "the tear-stained dust" as proof that "man--the whole man--cannot live again."

The entire poem has been happily designated "the Ecclesiastes of pagan religion." At the outset we have remarked Cleon admitting that Protus equally with himself has recognized, not only that joy is "the use of life," but that joy may not be found in material gratification alone, but rather in the cultivation of the higher faculties of man.

For so shall men remark, in such an act [_i.e._, in the munificence displayed by the gifts bestowed upon the poet]

Of love for him whose song gives life its joy, Thy recognition of the use of life. (ll. 20-22.)

The poet had so estimated "joy." It is in truth a higher estimate than that based upon a recognition of material good. Nevertheless, he is now to confess that from this, too, but an empty and transitory satisfaction is obtainable. His answer to Protus affords an a.n.a.lysis of his own reflections on the subject, since the thoughts have clearly not arisen now for the first time. And in the arguments immediately following we cannot but recognize Browning's own voice. The theory advanced is reiterated constantly throughout his writings, dramatic and otherwise. Cleon directs the attention of Protus to the perfections of animal life as created by Zeus in lines suggesting an interesting comparison with that remarkable and frequently quoted pa.s.sage from the concluding Section of _Paracelsus_ (ll. 655-694).

The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face;

The gra.s.s grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air, The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, shivering for very joy; Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls Flit where the sand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek Their loves in wood and plain--and G.o.d renews His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, From life's minute beginnings, up at last To man--the consummation of this scheme Of being, the completion of this sphere Of life: whose attributes had here and there Been scattered o'er the visible world before, Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant To be united in some wondrous whole, Imperfect qualities throughout creation, Suggesting some one creature yet to make, Some point where all those scattered rays should meet Convergent in the faculties of man.

So writes Cleon:

If, in the morning of philosophy, Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived, Thou, with the light now in thee, could'st have looked On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage-- Thou would'st have seen them perfect, and deduced The perfectness of others yet unseen.

Conceding which,--had Zeus then questioned thee "Shall I go on a step, improve on this, Do more for visible creatures than is done?"

Thou would'st have answered, "Ay, by making each Grow conscious in himself--by that alone.

All's perfect else: the sh.e.l.l sucks fast the rock, The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight, Till life's mechanics can no further go-- And all this joy in natural life is put Like fire from off thy finger into each, So exquisitely perfect is the same." (ll. 187-205.)

But the Teuton of the Renascence pa.s.ses beyond the Greek in his history of the evolution of man--as the outcome, the union, the consummation of all that has gone before. In his description of human nature so evolved, he continues by enumerating power controlled by will, knowledge and love as characteristics, hints and previsions of which

Strewn confusedly about The inferior natures--all lead up higher, All shape out dimly the superior race, The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false, And man appears at last.[26]

To Cleon such hopes, but vaguely suggested, leading upwards and onwards towards a recognition of the soul's immortality, are too fair for _truth_, their very beauty leads him to question their reality.

Admitted then that in "all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird,"

perfection is to be found, in what direction may advance be made?

Impossible in degree, it must, therefore, be in kind: some new faculty shall be added to those which man, the latest born of the creatures, shall share in common with his predecessors in the world of animal life--the knowledge and realization of his own individuality.

In due time [after leading the purely animal life] let him critically learn How he lives.

And what shall be the result of the new gift? To him who, inexperienced in its uses, lives "in the morning of philosophy," it must be indicative of an increase of happiness. With the greater fulness of life, resultant from extended knowledge, must surely follow also an extension of enjoyment. But such a belief, says Cleon, living in the eve of philosophy, could have existed only in its morning "ere aught had been recorded." Experience, that prosaic but infallible instructor, has taught man otherwise. The simplicity of mere animal life, though involving not the conscious happiness of a reasoning being (if indeed happiness there be for such) served to impart "the wild joy of living, mere living." A joy from which Caliban was to be found awakening to a realization of his own individuality, and also to a realization that joy and grief are relative terms: that joy, equally with grief, was impossible to the Quiet, the possessor of supreme power, as it was impossible to

Yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea.[27]

To Cleon, oppressed by a profound sense of discouragement in life, the cynical suggestion presents itself that the semi-conscious vegetating existence of the animal may be more desirable than the yearnings and aspirations inevitably attendant on human life, with its joys keen and intensified, but, alas! all too brief.

Thou king, hadst more reasonably said: "Let progress end at once,--man make no step Beyond the natural man, the better beast, Using his senses, not the sense of sense." (ll. 221-224.)

It is a purely pagan view of life.

In man there's failure, only since he left The lower and inconscious forms of life. (ll. 225-226.)

So man grew, and his widening intelligence opened out vast and ever-increasing possibilities of joy. But with the realization of possibilities came also the consciousness of his limitations. So long as the flesh had remained absolutely paramount, the restrictions it was capable of imposing upon the workings of the soul had been unfelt. Now, when the soul has climbed its watch-tower and perceives

A world of capability For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, Inviting us.

When at this moment the soul in its yearning "craves all," then is the time of the flesh to reply,

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 const.i.tuted, 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 pa.s.sage 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.