[ areal 
inftances which he produces, as he himfelf obferves, are not per- 
fe@tly Gothic, but thofe arches called contrafted, which have never 
been afcribed to the Goths and Longobards: and we are further 
to obferve, that they are not fuppofed to reprefent an actual 
building, but the ornaments of a cibarium only, 
= 
But in truth it feems extremely nugatory and fruitlefs to 
endeavour to afcertain the fpecific accident which gave birth to 
the pointed arch; many, almoft innumerable different circum- 
ftances could be affigned from which it might have originated ; 
andswho would venture confidently to adopt one in exclufion of the 
re{t?. One may, perhaps, appear more probable than another ; but 
difcoveries do not always arife from thofe circumftances, which after 
they have been made, might have been fuppofed moft naturally 
to have led to them. Who, for inftance, after ftudying the 
works of Newton, could have conjectured, that his great theory 
of the univerfal gravitation of matter had been fuggefted by the 
falling of an apple from a tree ?>—The mind indeed may fome- 
times amufe itfelf with excurfions into the aerial regions of fancy 
and conjecture; but to find reft, it muft return to the firm ground 
of fact. However entertaining therefore our fpeculations may 
be on the poffible caufes which gave rife to the idea of the. Gothic 
arch, we can be faid to reafon only when we direct our enquiries to 
the actual properties of the arch, which might have recommended 
its introduction into archite€ture, after the fafhion of fuch an arch had 
been conceived. In other cafes, as in the circle, ellipfe, and catena- 
ria, the nature of the curve alone is fuppofed fufficient for that pur- 
pofe; why then in the Gothic arch are all thefe confiderations to be 
“ paffed 
