The poet rarely cares to assert this dogmatically, preferring to show it by example in taking such themes for his most telling work. He is careful, too, to admit the subtle complexities and difficulties as well as the great simplicities of religion. Sometimes the matter is dealt with half whimsically, as in the marvellously clever monologue of Bishop Blougram over his wine and walnuts; sometimes grotesquely almost to the point of caricature, as in “Caliban upon Setebos"; and yet again with a high and wistful seriousness, as by Cleon, and the Pope in "The Ring and the Book."

One great reason of Browning's early neglect and later vogue has been that he anticipated with so sure an instinct the analytical tendency of the latter half of his century, when science strove to bring all things in heaven and earth to the dissecting table.' Another lies in an extraordinary insight into the depths of man's soul which makes the reading of some of his poems seem like an anticipation of the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. A third is to be found in his large use in argument of a philosophical method now particularly known as Humanism or Pragmatism. In "A Death in the Desert" St. John argues, to be sure, that if man were as certain of the worth of Christ as he is of the worth of fire, all would accept Him, there would be no room for doubt or question, and —

1 This fact has been interestingly developed by Mr. Stopford Brooke in his Poetry of Robert Browning, p. 8.

Man's probation would conclude, his earth
Crumble.

Yet, after all, the poet is always recurring to exactly this argument. Religion is as necessary and wholesome to a man's soul as bread to his body. Some faith in God, Duty, Immortality, is as needful to the breath of his soul's life during this present winter of his discontent as is fire to his household's health. Bishop Blougram is a somewhat doubtful ally, to be sure, but he reaches a fundamental experience in saying, —

Belief's fire, once in us,

Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself;
We penetrate our life with such a glow

As fire lends wood and iron- this turns steel,
That burns to ash

The secret of Browning's widespread and beneficent influence, as well as the guarantee of his fame, lies not merely in his art, grotesque and wilful as it often was; nor in his unique power of analysis; nor yet in his happy choice of a philosophical method which was about to become popular; nor even in the robust and good-humoured cheerfulness which gives a glow of genuine health to his work as a whole; but rather in the fact that, though a poet endowed with transcendent gifts, he was yet so representative a man in his feeling upon the deepest matters of doubt and faith.

The sum of all is

yes, my doubt is great,

My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough.

CHAPTER XII

DARWIN AND HIS PLOUGHSHARE

GEORGE JOHN ROMANES was the son of a Scots Presbyterian clergyman, resident in Kingston, Canada, as Professor of Greek in Queen's College. Following his birth, in 1848, the family left America and after several years of travel settled in London. Romanes received a rather desultory education, and finally went to Cambridge with the idea of fitting himself to take orders in the Church of England. This purpose he cherished for several years, but before taking a degree, found his interest enlisted so heartily by scientific studies as to change his plans, win a scholarship in science, and turn more or less definitely toward the profession of medicine. It was in the field of biology, however, that he was finally to do his life-work and gain a considerable recognition. I use his name to introduce this chapter, not because he is to be regarded as a Darwinian of unique gifts or authority, -although his gifts were exceptional and his authority eminent, — but because of a representative if not typical element in his experience. His first acquaintance with Darwin's books marked an epoch in his life. Circumstances eventually brought the

two men together, and, until the master's death in 1882, he had no more devoted disciple. This intimacy was indeed close enough to put us in Romanes's debt for some glimpses of Darwin's gracious simplicity of character which could ill have been spared. The younger man was, however, no unquestioning devotee. He accepted Darwin's great hypothesis as he accepted Herbert Spencer's philosophy, with a willing yet critical mind; and in due time made his own contribution to the doctrine of development under the title of "Physiological Selection." I have no especial competence to appraise its value, nor, indeed, to estimate the importance of any portion of Romanes's investigations in the field of nervous function and comparative intelligence.

It is less difficult to characterize his quality as a man; for he was singularly happy, not only by natural endowment, but in the circumstances of his short life. Well born and well bred, happily married and entirely well-to-do, with a rich nature which drank life in from all pure sources and imparted it generously, not only to his family and a host of friends but to a wider circle whose claims some men would have ignored, he represents almost uniquely the humaner side of that singular mixture of idol and bogey known to the modern world as a man of science.' His especial claim upon our attention is due to the significant cycle through which within about a score of years his

opinions seem to have passed. In 1873, in his twenty-fifth year, Romanes won the Burney Prize at Cambridge with an essay upon "Christian Prayer and General Laws." This was his first published book, and in it, almost as a matter of course, he upheld the orthodox views of the day. The book was, however, a herald of revolution. Its author had already become a convert to the great development theory then going forth conquering and to conquer; but though acquainted with Spencer's general exposition of it, he had not yet pondered the special application and illustration which it had received at the hands of Darwin. As this grew upon him, a profound change took place in his views. Five years after winning the Burney Prize he published, anonymously, "A Candid Examination of Theism," which had, however, been written several years earlier. In it he frankly faced the necessity of atheism, though with the confession that for himself it could be accepted with no equal mind.

The passage which laments his lost faith has been quoted so often as to be almost hackneyed; yet a repetition here is justified by its eloquent suggestion of the relation which is bound to declare itself between every great discovery in the field of science and man's religious nature.

"So far as I am individually concerned," he says, "the result of this analysis has been to show that, whether I regard the problem of Theism on the lower plane of strictly relative probability, or on