Esthetic Evolution. 251 



one style of architecture can be upheld to the exclusion of 

 all others." This seems to be in one sense true, and in 

 another sense false. That any one style of architecture 

 is suitable for all times and all places is manifestly 

 absurd ; but nevertheless, we may surely maintain that 

 only one style can be really suitable for a definite purpose 

 at any special locality at any given period. 



If it is true, as the writer just quoted says, that " differ- 

 ent ideas " are expressed by " different styles," we hold 

 it to be also true that one definite and clear idea can 

 have but one distinct and articulate architectural expres- 

 sion. We also believe that every church built should be 

 the expression and embodiment of its religious object as 

 conceived at the period of its erection in the locality in 

 which it is placed. 



While this rule is by no means a narrow one, but 

 freely allows that various and diverse buildings (e.g., 

 Amiens, or the Certosa of Pavia, or the Gesu) may cor- 

 rectly embody the diverse ideas of their designers, it is 

 decisive against the fitness of either gothic or Italian 

 for the religious architecture of the future in England. 

 That which correctly embodied conceptions of the thir- 

 teenth century, or the Italian climate, cannot also be the 

 correct embodiment of an English devotional idea of the 

 nineteenth century, except such idea is of the essential 

 identity of the Church of to-day with that of the Middle 

 Ages. As such an idea of continuity has largely occupied 



