170 



PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



The following table exhibits the composition of the principal dimen- 

 sions : — 



I am not aware that the application of the Pythagorean scale in any 

 of the works of Greeit architecture has heretofore been observed. It 

 is not improbable that the arcliitect of the Temple at Olympia may 

 have made an exceptional use of the numbers of musical harmony. 

 He may have been a Pythagorean by traiuiug. But it also is not 

 unlikely (although we have no evidence as yet of the fact) that the 

 Greek architects recognized a relation between the harmonies of music 

 and those of their own art ; and that some of them, ado[)ting the 

 Pythagorean doctrine of numbers as the key of Nature, and the origin 

 of the order of the universe, believed that the most perfect works 

 of their art were to be achieved by the conformity of their designs to 

 the principles of the architecture of the world. The law of harmony 

 must be one for the rolling of the spheres, and for every tone of the 

 lyre or the lute ; one for the proportions of the starry habitations, and 

 for those of the earthly temples of the gods. 



* It will be noticed that the factors of the dimensions are, except in two 

 instances, whole multiples of 7, or 3, or 5, and that, of the two exceptions, one, 

 23, is composed of 3 multipUed by 7-666, and the other, 34^, of 3 multiplied 

 by 11.5. 



