676 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. 
limited series’ 7 with “new work for the soul” in each is discussed 
in two playful stanzas, and a preference expressed for “rest/ 7 
but the tone of the whole passage is such that it can hardly be 
taken as a serious expression of opinion. The Epilogue to 
Asolando, which sounds much more like a direct avowal of 
Browning’s own view, expects a future life of strenuous exer¬ 
tion and contest. From the unsympathetic statement of the 
doctrine of future punishment in Johannes Agricola ? The Inn 
Album (369-502), and A Camel-Driver (90-111), it may be 
concluded that Browning rejected the view of hell as a place of 
torment which was current in his time, but was rapidly losing 
ground during the latter part of his life: and the last stanza 
of Apparent Failure indicates that he had reached this con¬ 
clusion, at any rate as early as 1863, when the poem was evi¬ 
dently written. The Pope in The Ring and the Booh has 
faith in the ultimate salvation even of Guido: 1 
So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, 
And Guido see, one instant, and be saved. 
Else I avert my face, nor follow him 
Into that sad obscure sequestered state 
Where God unmakes but to remake the soul 
He else made first in vain; which must not be. 
(2120-5) 
IV. The Problem of Evil. 
Closely connected with Browning’s view of the future life is 
his solution of the problem of evil. Bordello’s “closing truth” 
showed 
Ill and Well, 
Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness, 
Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less, 
All qualities, in fine, recorded here, 
Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere, 
Urgent on these, but not of force to bind 
Eternity, as Time—as Matter—Mind. 
(VI. 468-474.) 
.From the point of view of the Eternal and Absolute, Good 
and Evil are alike means for the perfection of man. “Earth 
i The attribution to Browning of a belief in conditional immortality, 
inferred from an obiter dictum in A Toccata of Galuppi’s, rests ob¬ 
viously upon insufficient foundation. 
