In his poem entitled `Halbert and Hob' (`Dramatic Lyrics',
First Series), quoting from Shakespeare's `King Lear',
"Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" the poet adds,
"O Lear, That a reason OUT of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!"

Mind is, with Browning, SUPERNATURAL, but linked with,
and restrained, and even enslaved by, the natural. The soul,
in its education, that is, in its awakening, becomes more and more
independent of the natural, and, as a consequence, more responsive to
higher souls and to the Divine. ALL SPIRIT IS MUTUALLY ATTRACTIVE,
and the degree of attractiveness results from the degree of freedom
from the obstructions of the material, or the natural.
Loving the truth implies a greater or less degree of that freedom
of the spirit which brings it into SYMPATHY with the true.
"If ye abide in My word," says Christ (and we must understand by "word"
His own concrete life, the word made flesh, and living and breathing),
"if ye abide in My word" (that is, continue to live My life),
"then are ye truly My disciples; and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free" (John viii. 32).

In regard to the soul's INHERENT possessions, its microcosmic
potentialities, Paracelsus is made to say (and this may be taken,
too, as the poet's own creed), "Truth is WITHIN ourselves;
it takes no rise from outward things, whate'er you may believe:
there is an inmost centre in us all, where truth abides in fulness;
and around, wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
this perfect, clear perception -- which is truth. A baffling
and perverting carnal mesh blinds it, and makes all error:
and, TO KNOW, rather consists in opening out a way whence