It is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech. (ll. 22, 23.)
Immediately combined with this is the form of cowardice distinctive of the lowest moral grade, the cowardice which would insult whilst occupying a position of security, but which grovels before the object of its antipathy as soon as it sees reason to fear approaching vengeance. To the mere physical pleasure of basking in the sunlight is added not alone the negative gratification of the consciousness of defrauding his employer, but the more active enjoyment of soliloquizing concerning “that Setebos whom his dam called God.” And why? With the sole purpose of affording him annoyance. In the winter-time such discussion might prove dangerous to the speaker, as Caliban possesses an insurmountable dread of that “cold” so powerful a weapon in the hands of his Deity. Even in summer he deems it desirable to avoid a too openly offered challenge to Setebos; hence the employment throughout his soliloquy of the third person, singular, in a curious attempt to mislead his hearer.
And what according to Browning’s theory as expressed elsewhere are we to expect of the god of this untaught, half-savage being, morally undeveloped, with artistic and poetic faculties already awakening? More or less will it necessarily be the outcome of his own experiences. A commentary on that familiar passage which S. John in A Death in the Desert (ll. 412-419) puts into the mouth of the objector to the truth of the facts of Christianity, who would regard the conception of the Godhead as subjective rather than objective in character. First in the history of the race came the ascription to the Deity of hands, feet, and bodily parts; then followed the human passions of pride and anger. Finally, all yield to the higher attributes of “power, love, and will,” these succeeding to and supplanting the earlier characteristics. In his imaginary answer the Evangelist is represented as attributing these changes of conception to the necessity of growth in human nature whereby man uses such aids to his development as may be attainable. The Truth itself remaining unaltered and unalterable, man obtains from time to time fuller glimpses thereof, the greater superseding, even apparently falsifying, the less. Caliban, uniting the two earlier conceptions of the Deity—as a being possessed of bodily parts and human passions—offers but the merest suggestion of any further and higher development. Yet there are such indirect, should we rather say negative, suggestions observable towards the close of the poem.
To Setebos is assigned as a dwelling-place “the cold o’ the moon,” possibly because the speaker feels it satisfactory that the god whom he fears should be at what he deems a distance sufficiently remote from his own habitation; partly also because to him “the cold o’ the moon” or, indeed, any cold, is suggestive of intensely disagreeable sensations, and to his unsatisfactory environment he ascribes the attempts of Setebos towards creation as designed to effect a change in his own condition. All things animate or inanimate inhabiting the island have been, according to Caliban, the work of Setebos. What still lies beyond the range of his creative power? Not the sun, as might have been anticipated, since to Caliban its agency is purely beneficial, and its influence apparently of limitless extent; not the sun, “clouds, winds, meteors,” but the stars. These “came otherwise,” how or by what means the soliloquist is unable to determine.
Then arises the further question. If, indeed, Setebos is the author of the visible creation, what has been the motive instigating him to the work? In accordance with Caliban’s experience of his own nature, it is impossible that any motive other than self-interest in some form or another should have actuated the Creator: hence he attributes the design to the discomfort of the dwelling-place “in the cold o’ the moon.” Nevertheless, even after the creation of the sun its warmth proved insufficient for comfort, the god failed to enjoy “the air he was not born to breathe.” Again, in the constitution of the animate beings inhabiting the island he strove to realize (so says Caliban) “what himself would fain in a manner be.” Hence the creatures made by Setebos are “weaker in most points” than is the god himself, yet “stronger in a few.” A theory suggesting an interesting comparison with the arguments by which David in Saul deduces the necessity of an Incarnation. Caliban ascribes to Setebos the power of originating faculties which he does not himself possess, and which in the nature of things he might, therefore, be deemed incapable of realizing. The illustration or comparison offered is that of Caliban’s own imagined occupation in an idle moment, when the idea occurs to him to make a bird of clay, endowing it with the power of flight, a power not numbered amongst his own capabilities. Thus he holds that Setebos, too, may create living beings, bestowing upon them faculties which he is himself incapable of exercising, making them, though, “weaker in some points, stronger in a few.” To the more cultivated intelligence of the Hebrew psalmist, as represented by Browning, such theory is untenable. That “the creature [should] surpass the Creator—the end what Began”[10] is as incomprehensible as it is illogical. Love existent in the creature is to David proof sufficient of the existence of love in the Creator. So thinks not Caliban. And yet with the curious inconsistency marking the reasoning of the slowly developing intellect, Setebos is represented as mocking his creatures whilst envying the capabilities with which he has gifted them. Thus:
So brave, so better though they be,
It nothing skills if He begins to plague. (ll. 66, 67.)
As the creation has been the result of mere wantonness, so the recognition of all appeal from created beings to the Creator will be governed by the same caprice. As with Caliban’s imagined dealings with his clay bird, he would do good or ill accordingly
As the chance were this might take or else
Not take my fancy. (ll. 90-91.)
So also is the action of the Deity towards his creation in all relations of life. He has elected Prospero for a career of “knowledge and power,” and, as his servant judges, one of supreme comfort, whilst he has appointed Caliban, equally deserving—in his own estimation—to hold the position of slave.
He hath a spite against me, that I know,
Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why? (ll. 202-203.)
Power which is irresponsible is exercised in a manner wholly capricious. There is no more satisfactory explanation of the dealings of Setebos with his creatures than that which Caliban can offer for his own treatment of the crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea,
when he may
Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. (ll. 101-103.)
Of one thing the savage deems himself assured, again judging from the pettiness which he finds existent in his own nature. Of one thing he is assured—that the wrath of the god is most readily to be kindled through envy, envy of the very objects of his own creation. A display of happiness is the surest method of incurring his vengeance; therefore
Even so, ’would have Him misconceive, suppose
This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,
And always, above all else, envies Him: (ll. 263-265.)
a belief inherent in all pre-Christian creeds in intimate connection with the doctrine of sacrifice, the place of which in the theology of Caliban must receive separate consideration. So does Herakles warn Admetus against indulgence in a supreme happiness,
Only the rapture must not grow immense:
Take care, nor wake the envy of the Gods.[11]
Thus will Caliban in spite kill two flies, basking “on the pompion-bell above,” whilst he gives his aid to
Two black painful beetles [who] roll their ball
On head and tail as if to save their lives. (ll. 260-261.)
Such are, according to Browning, some of the main features of the “Natural Theology in the Island,” suggesting conditions of life at once depressing and degrading: no satisfaction for the present but in deception of the over-ruling power, the sole hope for the future, that this dread being may tire of his early creation and hence relax his malicious watch in favour of a new and distant world, made “to please him more.” It is not difficult to