But the emphasis thus laid on the divine worth
and dignity of human love is balanced by the stress
which the poet places on thejrailty and finitude
of every other human attribute. Having, elevated
the ideal, he degrades, the. JWitual. Kn6wledge. and
the intellectual energy which produces it ; aS^t and
the love of beauty from which it springs ; every
power and every gift, physical and spiritual, other
than love, has in it the fatal flaw of being merely
hurrian. All these are so tainted with creatureship,
so limited and conditioned, that it is hardly too
much to say that they are at their best, deceptive
endowments. Thus, the life of man, regarded as a
whole, is, in its last essence, a combination of utterly
disparate elements. The distinction of the old
moralists between divinity and dust ; the absolute
dualism of the old ascetics between flesh and spirit,
sense and reason, find their accurate parallel in
Browning's teachings. But he is himself no ascetic,
and the line of distinction he draws does not, like
theirs, pass between the flesh and the spirit. It
rather cleaves man's spiritual nature into two por-
tions, which are absolutely different from each other.
{A chasm divides ^he head from the heart, the



SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 221

intellect from the motions, the moral and practical
ffonT the perceptive and reflective faculties.
