The Beautiful Necessity | Page 7

of Rome during the

decadence. In both there is the same lack of simplicity and sincerity,
the same profusion of debased and meaningless ornament, and there is
an increasing disposition to conceal and falsify the construction by
surface decoration.
The final part of this second or modern architectural cycle lies still in
the future. It is not unreasonable to believe that the movement toward
mysticism, of which modern theosophy is a phase and the
spiritualization of science an episode, will flower out into an
architecture which will be in some sort a reincarnation of and a return
to the Gothic spirit, employing new materials, new methods, and
developing new forms to show forth the spirit of the modern world,
without violating ancient verities.
In studying these crucial periods in the history of European architecture
it is possible to trace a gradual growth or unfolding as of a plant. It is a
fact fairly well established that the Greeks derived their architecture
and ornament from Egypt; the Romans in turn borrowed from the
Greeks; while a Gothic cathedral is a lineal descendant from a Roman
basilica.
[Illustration 2]
[Illustration 3]
The Egyptians in their constructions did little more than to place
enormous stones on end, and pile one huge block upon another. They
used many columns placed close together: the spaces which they
spanned were inconsiderable. The upright or supporting member may
be said to have been in Egyptian architecture the predominant one. A
vertical line therefore may be taken as the simplest and most abstract
symbol of Egyptian architecture (Illustration 2). It remained for the
Greeks fully to develop the lintel. In their architecture the vertical
member, or column, existed solely for the sake of the horizontal
member, or lintel; it rarely stood alone as in the case of an Egyptian
obelisk. The columns of the Greek temples were reduced to those
proportions most consistent with strength and beauty, and the
intercolumnations were relatively greater than in Egyptian examples. It
may truly be said that Greek architecture exhibits the perfect equality
and equipoise of vertical and horizontal elements and these only, no
other factor entering in. Its graphic symbol would therefore be
composed of a vertical and a horizontal line (Illustration 3). The

Romans, while retaining the column and lintel of the Greeks, deprived
them of their structural significance and subordinated them to the
semicircular arch and the semi-cylindrical and hemispherical vault, the
truly characteristic and determining forms of Roman architecture. Our
symbol grows therefore by the addition of the arc of a circle
(Illustration 4). In Gothic architecture column, lintel, arch and vault are
all retained in changed form, but that which more than anything else
differentiates Gothic architecture from any style which preceded it is
the introduction of the principle of an equilibrium of forces, of a state
of balance rather than a state of rest, arrived at by the opposition of one
thrust with another contrary to it. This fact can be indicated graphically
by two opposing inclined lines, and these united to the preceding
symbol yield an accurate abstract of the elements of Gothic architecture
(Illustration 5).
[Illustration 4]
[Illustration 5]
All this is but an unusual application of a familiar theosophic teaching,
namely, that it is the method of nature on every plane and in every
department not to omit anything that has gone before, but to store it up
and carry it along and bring it into manifestation later. Nature
everywhere proceeds like the jingle of _The House that Jack Built_: she
repeats each time all she has learned, and adds another line for
subsequent repetition.
[Footnote A: The quaint Oriental imagery here employed should not
blind the reader to the precise scientific accuracy of the idea of which
this imagery is the vehicle. Schopenhauer says: "Polarity, or the
sundering of a force into two quantitively different and opposed
activities striving after re-union,... is a fundamental type of almost all
the phenomena of nature, from the magnet and the crystal to man
himself."]

II
UNITY AND POLARITY
Theosophy, both as a philosophy, or system of thought, which
discovers correlations between things apparently unrelated, and as a life,
or system of training whereby it is possible to gain the power to
perceive and use these correlations for worthy ends, is of great value to

the creative artist, whose success depends on the extent to which he
works organically, conforming to the cosmic pattern, proceeding
rationally and rhythmically to some predetermined end. It is of value no
less to the layman, the critic, the art amateur--to anyone in fact who
would come to an accurate and intimate understanding and appreciation
of every variety of esthetic endeavor. For the benefit of such I shall try
to trace some of those correlations which theosophy affirms, and
indicate their bearing upon