But about them in connection with Browning there nevertheless remains something to be added.
Browning was, as most of his upholders and all his opponents say, an optimist.

His theory, that man's sense of his own imperfection implies a design of perfection, is a very good argument for optimism.

His theory that man's knowledge of and desire for self-sacrifice implies God's knowledge of and desire for self-sacrifice is another very good argument for optimism.

But any one will make the deepest and blackest and most incurable mistake about Browning who imagines that his optimism was founded on any arguments for optimism.

Because he had a strong intellect, because he had a strong power of conviction, he conceived and developed and asserted these doctrines of the incompleteness of Man and the sacrifice of Omnipotence.