INDISTINCTNESS OF IDEAS. 



3. Indistinctness of Ideas shown in Architec- 

 ture. Perhaps it may serve to illustrate still fur- 

 ther the extent to which, under the Roman empire, 

 men's notions of mechanical relations became faint, 

 wavered, and disappeared, if we observe the change 

 which took place in architecture. All architec- 

 ture, to possess genuine beauty, must be mecha- 

 nically consistent. The decorative members m ust 

 represent a structure which has in it a principal of 

 support and stability. Thus the Grecian colonnade 

 was a straight horizontal beam, resting on vertical 

 props; and the pediment imitated a frame like a 

 roof, where oppositely-inclined beams support each 

 other. These forms of building were, therefore, 

 proper models of art, because they implied sup- 

 porting forces. But to be content with colonnades 

 and pediments, which, though they imitated the 

 forms of the Grecian ones, were destitute of their 

 mechanical truth, belonged to the decline of art ; 

 and showed that men had lost the idea of force, 

 and retained only that of shape. Yet this was what 

 the architects of the empire did. Under their 

 hands, the pediment was severed at its vertex, and 

 divided into separate halves, so that it was no 

 longer a mechanical possibility. The entablature 

 no longer lay straight from pillar to pillar, but, 

 projecting over each column, turned back to the 

 wall, and adhered to it in the intervening space. 

 The splendid remains of Palmyra, Balbec, Petra, 

 exhibit endless examples of this kind of perverse 



