He gave us from his fire of fires.

He is at one with Eckhart, and with all mystics, in his appeal from the
intellect to that which is beyond intellect; in his assertion of the
supremacy of feeling, intuition, over knowledge. Browning never wearies
of dwelling on the relativity of physical knowledge, and its inadequacy
to satisfy man. This is perhaps best brought out in one of the last
things he wrote, the "Reverie" in _Asolando_; but it is dwelt on in
nearly all his later and more reflective poems. His maxim was--

Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then, and trust
As wholly love allied to ignorance!
There lies thy truth and safety. ...
Consider well!
Were knowledge all thy faculty, then God
Must be ignored: love gains him by first leap.

_A Pillar at Sebzevar._

Another point of resemblance with Eckhart is suggested by his words:
"That foolish people take evil for good, and good for evil." Browning's
theory of evil is part of the working-out of his principle of what may
be called the coincidence of extreme opposites. This is, of course, part
of his main belief in unity, but it is an interesting development of it.
This theory is marked all through his writings; and, although
philosophers have dealt with it, he is perhaps the one poet who faces
the problem, and expresses himself on the point with entire conviction.
His view is that good and evil are purely relative terms (see _The
Bean-stripe_), and that one cannot exist without the other. It is evil
which alone makes possible some of the divinest qualities in