So high is the dignity and worth of the moral
life to Browning, that no sacrifice is too great to
secure it. And, indeed, if it were once clearly
recognized that there is no good thing but good-
ness, nothing of supreme worth except the realiza-
tioiT'bf a loving will, then dQubti„.i gnoran ce, and
every other jQrm.j?.f . apparent evil would be fully
justified — iprovided they were conditions whereby
this highest good is attained. And, to Browning,
ignorance was one of the conditions. And, con-
sequently, the dread pause in the music which

*j4 Bean-Stripe.
SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL



233



agnosticism brings, is only 'silence implying sound';
and the vain cry for truth, arising from the heart
of the earth's best men, is only a discord moving
towards resolution into the more rapturous harmony
of moral goodness.
I do not stay here to inquire whether sure
knowledge would really have this disastrous effect
of destroying morality, or whether its failure does
not rather imply the impossibility of a moral life.
I return to the question asked at the beginning
of this chapter, and which it is now possible to
answer. That question was : How does Browning
reconcile his hypothesis of univ ersal love with, the
natural and moral evils existing in the world ?

His" answer is -quite"SpIicit. The poet solves
the problem by casting doubJt Jupon.lheLiacts which
threaten his Jiypothesis. He reduces them" into
phenomena, in the sense of phantoms begotten by
the human intellect upon unknown and unknowable
realities.
