Browning as a scientific poet / by Edward Berdoe.

  • Berdoe, Edward, 1836-1916.
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Browning as a scientific poet / by Edward Berdoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Q'o him who will not believe in soul because his scalpel cannot detect it, he says show me first an atom I Immortality incredible 1 Your atom is a ti-uly immortal being ! In one of the finest passages in Ferishtah's Fancies he discusses this difficulty the materialist has to face. To know of, think about— Is all man's sum of faculty etlects When exercised on earth's least atom, Son ! What was, what is, what may such atom be I No answer ! Still, what seems it to man's sense ? An atom with some certain properties Known about, thought of as occasion needs, —Man's—but occasions of the universe t Unthinkable, unknowable to man. Yet, since to think and know fire through and through Exceeds man, is the warmth of fire unknown. Its uses—are they so unthinkable ? Pass from such obvious power to powers unseen, Undreamed of save in their sure consequence! Take that, we spoke of late, which draws to ground The staff my hand lets fall: it draws, at least— Thus much man thinks and knows, if nothing more. (FerisMah, p. 131.) When we reflect how infinitely little we know of these atoms here spoken of, and of that mysterious force of gravitation, and the .medium through which it acts, referred to in the last lines, it is not surpri-sing we should be unable to solve the greater problems of life, the soul and God. If it be contrary to received notions that in Browning we have a scientific poet, is it not still more remarkable that in a scientific man we have faith in some at least of the great doctrines of the Christian religion 1 Would not his dissecting, analysing spirit prove a solvent for creeds 1 If we knew him less we might almost predicate tbis of him. Nothing, however, could be more contrary to the fact. Again and again he warns us that we must not put religion into an alembic, must not resolve faith into its elements, analyse the pearl of great price, pump all the air out of the great Christian verities. In a word, he tells us a scientific faith's absurd—frustrates the very end it was meant to serve (vol. v. p. 170). You must mix some uncertainty with faith, if you would have faith be (vol. v. p. 168). He complains of the exhausted air-bell of tlie critic—that it leaves no air to poison (vol. v. p. 149).