A momentary glance at the passage in question will make this clear. Paracelsus traces first development as illustrated in geological forms:
"The center-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face; The molten one bursts up among the rocks, Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright In hidden mines, spots barren river beds, Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask."
Next he touches upon plant life and animal life. The grass grows bright, the boughs are swollen with blooms, ants make their ado, birds fly in merry flocks, the strand is purple with its tribe of nested limpets, savage creatures seek their loves in wood and plain. Then he shows how in all this animal life are scattered attributes foreshadowing a being that will combine them. Then appears primitive man, only half enlightened, who gains knowledge through the slow, uncertain fruit of toil, whose love is not serenely pure, but strong from weakness, a love which endures and doubts and is oppressed. And out of the travail of the human soul as it proceeds from lower to higher forms is finally evolved self-conscious man--man who consciously looks back upon all that has preceded him and interprets nature by means of his own human perceptions. The winds are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, a querulous mutter or a quick, gay laugh, never a senseless gust, now man is born.
But development does not end with the attainment of this self-consciousness. After this stage has been reached there continues an evolution which is distinctively spiritual, a tendency to God. Browning was not content with the evolution of man, he was prophetic of the final flowering of man in the superman, although he had never heard of Nietszche.
The corollary to this progressive theory of life, a view held by scientific thinkers, is that sin is not depravity, but is merely a lack of development. Paracelsus is therefore made wise to know even hate is but a mask of love, to see a good in evil, a hope in ill-success, to sympathize, even be proud of man's half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim struggles for truth--all with a touch of nobleness despite their error, upward tending all, though weak.
Though there are points of contact between the thought of the true Paracelsus and of Browning, the points of contact between Spencer and Browning are far more significant, for Browning seems intuitively to have perceived the fundamental truths of social and psychic evolution at the early age of twenty-three--truths which the philosopher worked out only after years of laborious study.