Browning and Dogma Part 7

Has the world here--should he need the next, Let the world mind him!

In _Cleon_, in _A Death in the Desert_, in _Dis Aliter Visum_, and perhaps above all in _Abt Vogler_ (to refer to only a few ill.u.s.trations out of the many possible), the fact that man is incapable of accommodating himself to his environment is treated as a proof that this is not his true sphere of existence; that he was designed, and is still destined, for something higher. So asks the lover of Pauline:

How should this earth's life prove my only sphere?

Can I so narrow sense but that in life Soul still exceeds it?

In _Dis Aliter Visum_, the a.s.sertion

What's whole, can increase no more, Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphere;

has especial reference to love,

The sole spark from G.o.d's life "at strife"

With death, so, sure of range above The limits here.

but there is a recognition of the general principle that that work alone is worth beginning here and now, which "cannot grow complete," and which "heaven (not earth) must finish." Even where, as in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, Browning lays strongest emphasis upon "the unity of life"; where age is regarded as the completion of the physical life begun in youth, the question is put, and left unanswered:

Thy body at its best, How far can it project thy soul on its lone way?

These years of mortal life are to be devoted to the best use, so that it shall not be possible to say that "soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul." Nevertheless, the final result is to be that man, in yielding his physical life, pa.s.ses

A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a G.o.d though in the germ.

It cannot be denied that the Bishop is taking a distinctly lower position than that suggested by any of the theories thus advanced. Nevertheless, he holds himself, and probably with reason, to be upon higher ground than that occupied by his critic. Recognizing his incapacity for experiencing the enthusiasm of a Luther, he does not, therefore, feel constrained to adopt the coldly critical att.i.tude of a Strauss. In his own words--

My business is not to remake myself, But make the absolute best of what G.o.d made. (ll. 355-356.)

So Luigi, in calculating his fitness for the office of a.s.sa.s.sin a.s.signed him, is found reckoning his very insignificance as of greater worth, under the given conditions, than his strength--extending his philosophy in a general application to human life.

Every one knows for what his excellence Will serve, but no one ever will consider For what his worst defect might serve: and yet Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder In search of a distorted ash? I find The wry, spoilt branch, a natural, perfect bow.[58]

There is a possible vocation in life for a Blougram as for a Luther.

IV. Admitting then the wide difference between the ideal life proposed by his critics, and the practical life which he has himself adopted, with line 144 the Bishop pa.s.ses to a consideration of the possibility of effecting any form of reconciliation between the two theories. What restrained his college friend from seeking the position occupied by his comrade? What but his incapacity for belief, or, more accurately speaking, his incapacity for accepting any fixed and markedly defined creed. This difficulty the Bishop a.s.sumes himself to share: his faith is relative rather than absolute; hence, having adopted the position of unbelievers, so-called, the question remains, how may each in his several station, lead a life consistent with such profession? The prelate holds that to preserve a fixed att.i.tude of unbelief is a feat of even greater difficulty than that of maintaining the opposed position of faith--neither being in fact absolutely and unalterably defined. It is easy enough for the onlooker to imagine that the creed of the Church is a matter straightforward and unperplexing for those living within the fold, admitting of no questioning, no error; faith or unfaith; no half measures possible. Not so; even within the Church the believer has his difficulties wherewith to contend, his doubts, his hesitations.

That way Over the mountain, which who stands upon Is apt to doubt if it be meant for road; While, if he views it from the waste itself, Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two Seen from the unbroken desert either side? (ll. 197-203.)

The Bishop would go yet further, and suggest that the inevitable doubts and questionings of the earnest believer are in themselves but a means of strengthening faith: this being so, what should restrain him from entering the Church's fold?

What if the breaks themselves should prove at last The most consummate of contrivances To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith?

And so we stumble at truth's very test! (ll. 205-208.)

Since consistent unbelief is at least as impossible as consistent faith, the conclusion follows that life must be either one of "faith diversified by doubt," or of "doubt diversified by faith." Well, he has chosen one, let Gigadibs enjoy the other--if he can.

V. Which life is preferable, that which calls the chess-board white, the life of faith (in so far as faith is possible); or that which calls the chess-board black, the life of doubt? The predominating (though by no means absolute) influence of belief or of unbelief, determines the lines on which character and life alike shall develop. Now, the Bishop a.s.serts that for him belief will bring, nay, has indeed brought, what he most desires in life--"power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days." If Gigadibs suggests that in his case unbelief will bring the satisfaction which belief affords his companion of the dinner-table, then the Bishop demurs. The faith of which he makes profession is calculated to meet all exigencies--faith is in short his "waking life." The scepticism of the journalist is, on the contrary, void of all practical utility. Should he wish to live consistently he must cut himself off from those everyday demands of life to which faith is an absolute requisite. He must "live to sleep." And here the Bishop emphasizes an obvious, though not commonly recognized fact--a powerful argument in favour of faith--in the abstract, at least. He who professes himself a sceptic in matters spiritual, is yet compelled to the exercise of faith in each act of practical life. Mutual confidence abolished between man and man, business transactions become impossible, and mercantile activity is brought to a standstill. Belief involved in matters such as these, must, would the sceptic prove consistent, be cast overboard with the other faiths of his childhood: and the active man of the world becomes "bed-ridden." Amongst the temporal advantages which the Bishop accounts as resulting from his profession, first rank is accorded "the world's estimation, which is half the fight,"

to gain which nothing less than a positive confession of unswerving faith is required. Hence circ.u.mstances have forced from him the a.s.sertions:

Friends, I absolutely and peremptorily Believe! (ll. 243-245.)

I say, I see all, And swear to each detail the most minute In what I think a Pan's face--you, mere cloud: I swear I hear him speak and see him wink, For fear, if once I drop the emphasis, Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all. (ll. 866-871.)

The world has decided that with regard to

Certain points, left wholly to himself, When once a man has arbitrated on, ... he must succeed there or go hang. (ll. 289-291.)

And of the most important of these "points" is

The form of faith his conscience holds the best, Whate'er the process of conviction was. (ll. 296-297.)

The Roman Catholic faith is that in which the Bishop was born and educated. It had been decided from childhood that he should become a priest: hence his choice of vocation. And this faith is, for him, one in which power temporal, as well as spiritual, puts forth its claims. Its undaunted champion may a.s.sert "I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile," but in drawing the distinction between "Peter's creed" and that of Hildebrand, Blougram recognizes by implication the political aspect of the cause for which the struggle thus closing had been sustained.

VI. If then, in satisfaction of the demands of those uncompromising advocates of truth of whom Gigadibs is representative, the prelate of the nineteenth century shall renounce his position as confessor of the creed of the eleventh, in what rank of life may he take his stand? From what career may faith be, without injurious effects, wholly excluded? For if faith, to merit its t.i.tle, is to be unmixed with doubt, equally must unbelief be unalloyed in quality. A life apart from faith? That of Napoleon? If so, then does the critic claim that Napoleon shares with him the "common primal element of unbelief," belief being an impossibility.

Yet to such an admission the Corsican's whole career would give the lie.

Whatever the character of the faith which sustained him, faith there was, sufficient to lead him on to colossal deeds: his trust may have been "crazy," "G.o.d knows through what, or in what"; but to all intents and purposes it was faith, possessing the essential element of faith, _life_, and the inspiration of life:

It's alive And shines and leads him, and that's all we want.

But to the Bishop such a life would have been impossible, since he has not the clue to Napoleon's faith. "The noisy years" would not have offered him his ideal, even were this life all. And he does not himself believe that this life _is_ all: although he will not a.s.sert that to him a future state of existence is matter of absolute certainty. If the career of "the world's victor" is not then possible without faith of some kind, what of that of the artist, of the poet? With a return to the earlier cynical recognition of his own limitations, the Bishop enquires of what use an attempt on his part to emulate Shakespeare when endowed by nature with neither dramatic nor poetic faculty? Nevertheless he finds that he has much in life which Shakespeare would have been glad to possess. The author of _Hamlet_ and of _Oth.e.l.lo_ might in truth enjoy the good things of earth by the mere exercise of imagination; yet, strange anomaly, he built himself

The trimmest house in Stratford town; Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of _things_.

Even a Shakespeare, then, may be more or less of a materialist. Thus the successful churchman who has attained the object of his ambition, whose life is one of pleasantness and peace, may with confidence, turning to the poet, ask him--

If this life's all, who wins the game?

VII. If, however, the existence of another life _is_ to be recognized; if belief is to be allowed to take the place of scepticism, then the face of the argument is at once changed, and the Bishop is as ready as is his critic to admit that enthusiasm is the grandest inspiration of human nature. But he is--or so he would have his listener believe--no more capable of the enthusiastic faith of Luther than of the strategic achievements of Napoleon or the dramatic creations of Shakespeare.

Nevertheless, the negations of the sceptic's creed bear for him no attraction. In either case remains the risk that faith or absence of faith may prove error. The uncertainty on both sides being equal, it is _not_ as well to be Strauss as Luther. Better even the mere desire for belief in the story of the Gospels, than a dispa.s.sionately critical attempt to reconcile discrepencies in that which has no personal interest for the enquirer: the one means spiritual vitality, the other stagnation.

VIII. With line 647, once more reverting to his earlier demonstration of the impossibility of a "pure faith," the Bishop would submit that the Divine Presence is veiled rather than revealed by Nature, until such time as man shall have become capable of being "confronted with the truth of him." But what of the mediaeval days, "that age of simple faith"? Were men the better for their simplicity of belief? By no means, replies the casuist of the nineteenth century, whose faith "means perpetual unbelief."

The simple faith proved itself unequal to the task of inspiring a life of outward morality: men could and did

Lie, kill, rob, fornicate Full in beliefs face

Rather the lifelong struggle with doubt, than this childish credulity empty of practical result. And in spite of his doubts, Blougram holds his faith "sufficient," since it just suffices to keep the doubts in check.

Nevertheless he will not incur the risk of shaking unduly such faith as he possesses. He must not, therefore, begin to question even the most questionable of ecclesiastical miracles. Whilst he cannot trust himself to criticize things spiritual, he may yet prevent himself from taking the first step in that direction. And here Browning has been accused of implying that the Roman Catholic Church demands of its members acceptance of miracles, such as that held to affect the blood of S. Januarius, referred to as "the Naples' liquefaction." The Bishop is obviously intended to suggest no universal obligation; with him the matter is purely personal. He has not, as he has already admitted, sufficient confidence in the calibre of his faith to allow reason to step in and question the reliability of that which he would fain hold implicitly as truth. He fears to take the first step on the road of criticism which ends in the definition of G.o.d as "the moral order of the universe." Is not this, allowing for the a.s.sumed scepticism of the Bishop, consistent with what we find Cardinal Wiseman writing of his experiences in the early days of struggle with doubts and questionings which cost him so much? Thus he writes to a nephew twenty years after the worst of the conflict was over; "During the struggle the simple submission of faith is the only remedy.

Thoughts against faith must be treated at the time like temptations against any other virtue--put away--though in cooler moments they may be safely a.n.a.lysed and unravelled."[59]

In conclusion, the prelate emphatically rea.s.serts the _practical_ superiority of his choice of a career over that of this particular sceptic, since it is in fact impossible for the journalist to live his life of negation. He obeys the dictates of reason only where these do not run counter too markedly to the prejudices of others: there he is forced to yield to some extent. Thus he "grazes" through life, with "not one lie," escaping the censure of his fellow men, but not gaining their esteem or admiration, essentials to the happiness of his companion. So the Bishop remains victorious on all counts, and emphasizes the superiority of his position by bestowing upon his guest practical proof in the "three words"

of introduction to publishers in London, Dublin, or New York, securing

Such terms as never [he] aspired to get In all our own reviews and some not ours.

IX. A few supplementary observations upon those points at which the Apologist touches the firmer ground which he recognizes as existing beneath the surface on which he bases his defence. That he is not entirely satisfied with the conditions of his existence is obvious from the character of the apology, which suggests, from time to time, thoughts higher than those to which he gives direct utterance. Opportunist as he would present himself to be, lines 693-698, are unmistakably the expression of inmost experience--

When the fight begins within himself, A man's worth something. G.o.d stoops o'er his head, Satan looks up between his feet--both tug-- He's left, himself, i' the middle: the soul wakes And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!

Never leave growing till the life to come!