non-discursive side of our nature, is the dry-rot of the soul.
The spiritual functions are "smothered in surmise". Faith is not
a matter of blind belief, of slavish assent and acceptance,
as many no-faith people seem to regard it. It is what
Wordsworth calls it, "a passionate intuition", and springs out of
quickened and refined sentiment, out of inborn instincts which are
as cultivable as are any other elements of our complex nature,
and which, too, may be blunted beyond a consciousness
of their possession. And when one in this latter state
denies the reality of faith, he is not unlike one born blind
denying the reality of sight.

A reiterated lesson in Browning's poetry, and one that results from
his spiritual theory, is, that the present life is a tabernacle-life,
and that it can be truly lived only as a tabernacle-life;
for only such a life is compatible with the ever-continued
aspiration and endeavor which is a condition of, and inseparable from,
spiritual vitality.

Domizia, in the tragedy of `Luria', is made to say: --

"How inexhaustibly the spirit grows!
One object, she seemed erewhile born to reach
With her whole energies and die content, --
So like a wall at the world's edge it stood,
With naught beyond to live for, -- is that reached? --
Already are new undream'd energies
Outgrowing under, and extending farther
To a new object; -- there's another world!"