REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 69 



aisles. The flying buttresses, which are such a feature in 

 great Gothic architecture had, I can only suppose, a like 

 origin. They were originally buttress walls carried up to 

 the roof. At some period a genius, already acquainted with 

 arcuated structure, saw that if the inside of these walls 

 was cut away, they would still take a heavy thrust and 

 lighten the rest of the building. If, however, on being 

 converted into such slender stone shores they showed signs 

 of yielding, what could be easier than to pile some of the 

 removed material upon the base of the flying arch, and 

 thus create the beginning of the pinnacle ? Though an 

 architect might develop such a rough statement, he would 

 be the first to admit that it represents in few words much 

 of the evolution of a church : that is, he would own the 

 structure sprang from need, and that each new need 

 caused a constructional failure which, when strengthened 

 and corrected, was the cause of further structure. He 

 would further tell us that all good ornament is organic ; 

 that it springs naturally from the work already done, being 

 in its origin just the little more needed to give a margin 

 of safety, though on it later are exercised the aesthetic 

 faculties of man, which are again a response to the need 

 of full satisfaction for the instinct of workmanship. 

 Human ornament is in fact strongly homologous, if we may 

 use that word here, with the beauty of very energetic 

 birds, who carry out by virtue of their free energy the 

 extension of structures and colours already existing in their 

 less brilliant forms. That, however, is by the way. The 

 main fact we are concerned with is that the building as a 

 whole is evolved through trial and error, through failure 

 and repair, through a threatened structure to a more com- 

 plete and adequate one for increased function. In a word, 

 the great origin of structure was failure after failure duly 



