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•which this principle may not be studied. If we visit the Electrical 

 Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, what a marvellous complexity do we 

 find in the latest electrical machinery. There is the old signalling 

 apparatus of 50 years ago — a man with a stick by day and a candle by 

 night— surely simplicity can no further go. Then turn to the locking 

 apparatus of the block system, and see the marvellous parts on the 

 interaction of which the whole mechanism depends. But a more intellij^ible 

 illustration is presented at our doors, in architecture. The earliest 

 habitation of our race was probably a cave, next came some rude hovel 

 hai'dly better, with one opening which served for door, windo^^ and 

 chimney. Soon we get differentiation and specialization of functions ; 

 a hole is made in the wall to serve for light, and another for ingress and 

 egress, the smoke however finds its way out of one of these, and has not 

 its own proper orifice. Then we reach that development of civilization, 

 an actual chimney. Next we need some separation between the room 

 for daily occupations and the sleeping apartments ; in oriental lands 

 between the apartments of men and women ; so we get the Homeric 

 house, with store rooms, hall, sleeping rooms, and women's chambers; 

 or a building is needed for the worship of the gods ; let us trace its growth, 

 simple at first, one square room, then for adornment we have the 

 columns before it, then a division into outer and inner sanctuary, each 

 member undergoes further sub-division, the columns must have base and 

 capital, the front pediment architraves and triglyphs. In a temple like 

 the Parthenon, the very names of the different parts form a very 

 considerable vocabulary. Let us take our own Cathedral. In ground 

 plan we have crypt, nave, choir transept, eastern and side chape's. The 

 choir itself is sub-divided into choir proper, presbytery, and sanctuary, 

 take each column, go down to the crypt, we find in early times one fingle 

 shaft, yet it has its base and capital, we return to the choir, the shaft 

 has other shafts grouped about it, in the nave we compare the elaborately 

 fluted pillar with those simple cylinders of Anselm and his priors. Or 

 shall we take a window in Norman times ; we have a simple opening 

 with semi-circular head, the Decorated Period associates this in varied 

 groups, like the window in S. Anselm's Chapel, finally we have the 

 fully developed product which can only bo described accurately by a 

 vocabulary of architectural terms. The passage from a Norman window 

 to a Pei-pendicular like that at the west end of the Nave is a passage 

 from the simple to the complex. But we have not done yet. Take any 

 section of the choir, and look from floor to ceiling, we see three main 

 divisions, the lower arcade, the triforium, the clerestory — there is 

 indeed no part where we cannot see this principle of sub-division at 

 work, heightening the interest and the beauty of the structure, and 

 giving man bold scope for fresh triumphs of creative art as it is itself 

 the product of imaginative genius. 



Let us turn from Architecture to Politics. In early days and early 

 states of society, those conditions of which we get so vivid a picture in 

 the Bible, the king centres in himself all the various functions of 



