Why should not the nineteenth century of mundane comforts, of doubt troubled by faith, and faith troubled by doubt, produce a new type--serious yet humorous--in an episcopal Pascal-Montaigne?
Browning's moral sympathies, we may rest assured, do not go with one who like Blougram finds satisfaction in things realised on earth; one who declines--at least as he represents himself for the purposes of argument--to press forward to things which he cannot attain but might nobly follow after.

But Browning's intellectual interest is great in seeing all that a Blougram can say for himself; and as a destructive piece of criticism directed against the position of a Gigadibs what he says may really be effective.

The Bishop frankly admits that the unqualified believer, the enthusiast, is more fortunate than he; he, Sylvester Blougram, is what he is, and all that he can do is to make the most of the nature allotted to him.

That there has been a divine revelation he cannot absolutely believe; but neither can he absolutely disbelieve.

Unbelief is sterile; belief is fruitful, certainly for this world, probably for the next, and he elects to believe.