At the same time, clear knowledge that evil is illusion would defeat its
own end and paralyse all moral effort, for evil only exists for the
development of good in us.
Type needs antitype:
As night needs day, as shine needs shade, so good
Needs evil: how were pity understood
Unless by pain?
This is one reason why Browning never shrank from the evil in the world,
why indeed he expended so much of his mind and art on the analysis and
dissection of every kind of evil, laying bare for us the working of the
mind of the criminal, the hypocrite, the weakling, and the cynic;
because he held that--
Only by looking low, ere looking high
Comes penetration of the mystery.
There are other ways in which Browning's thought is especially mystical,
as, for instance, his belief in pre-existence, and his theory of
knowledge, for he, like Plato, believes in the light within the soul,
and holds that--
To know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.
_Paracelsus_, Act I.
But the one thought which is ever constant with him, and is peculiarly
helpful to the practical man, is his recognition of the value of
limitation in all our energies, and the stress he lays on the fact that
only by virtue of this limitation can we grow.
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