Hence, he did not follow or reflect from year to year the opinions of his time on these great matters.

When _Paracelsus_ was published in 1835 Browning had fully thought out, and in that poem fully expressed, his theory of God's relation to man, and of man's relation to the universe around him, to his fellow men, and to the world beyond.

It was a theory which was original, if any theory can be so called.

At least, its form, as he expressed it, was clearly original.

Roughly sketched in _Pauline_, fully rounded in _Paracelsus_, it held and satisfied his mind till the day of his death.