That we cannot grow to our highest attainment by the old method enjoined by pagan philosophy--that of living according to nature, he regards as evident, for nature itself is warped and marred; it groans and travails, and from its discords how shall we frame a harmony?
It was always his habit of mind, he tells us, from his childhood onwards, to face a danger and confront a doubt, and if there were anywhere a lurking fear, to draw this forth from its hiding-place and examine it in the light, even at the risk of some mortal ill.

Therefore he will press for an answer to his present questionings; he will try conclusions to the uttermost.
As to the initial difficulty of faith, Browning with a touch of scorn, assures us that evidences of spiritual realities, evidences of Christianity--as they are styled--external and internal will be readily found by him who desires to find; convincing enough they are for him who wants to be convinced.

But in truth faith is a noble venture of the spirit, an aspiring effort towards what is best, even though what is best may never be attained.

The mole gropes blindly in unquestionably solid clay; better be like the grasshopper "that spends itself in leaps all day to reach the sun." A grasshopper's leap sunwards--that is what we signify by this word "faith." But the difficulties of the Christian life only shift their place when faith by whatever means has been won.

We are bidden to renounce the world: what does the injunction mean?
in what way shall it be obeyed?
"Ascetic" Mrs Browning named this poem; and ascetic it is if by that word we understand the counselling and exhorting to a noble exercise and discipline; but Browning even in his poem by no means wears the cilix, and no teaching can be more fatal than his to asceticism in the narrower sense of the word.