§21. RULES FOR PROPORTION. 20o 



all might equally attain to excellence in the knowledge of 

 proportion ; whereas, on the contrary, experience shows how 

 rare it is in architecture, or in any ornamental composition. 

 It is this subserviency to mere rules, without any aid from 

 the perceptive faculties, that has led to many errors in build- 

 ings of modern days, where the proportions of some Greek, or 

 other, edifice, have perhaps been accurately copied without 

 any reference to its position, and with a total forgetfulness of 

 the important fact, that it requires a different character if 

 built upon a level plain or upon a height. Again, how 

 different are the proportions in different kinds of architecture, 

 as in the Greek and Gothic styles ; and the same rules that 

 will serve for a depressed pediment will not apply to a pyra- 

 mid, a gable, or a spire. Yet the eye will equally perceive 

 correctness or want of proportion in any one of them ; and 

 the Greek, and the varying lancet, window have both their 

 proper proportion, though so different in the ratio of the 

 breadth to the height. So, again, with animals, or other 

 natural objects ; and the horse and the cat, the snake and the 

 lizard, are equally beautiful and consistent with proportion, 

 though very different in their conditions. And is not the eye 

 a far better judge of this harmony of proportion in all these 

 animals than any rule by which it could be tested ? 



Kules, however, may be laid down for the proportion of all 

 objects of geometrical form, and even for more complicated 

 figures ; and they, would be of great use in correcting the 

 deformities we are daily condemned to behold in our build- 

 ings, vases, and articles of ornament and use. It is true that 

 no one can expect general rules to be laid down for the pro- 

 portion of all objects ; the instances of the snake, the horse, 

 and others, suffice to show that this is impossible ; and it is evi- 

 dent that we must appeal to the perceptive faculties. When, 

 however, the eye has told us that the proportion of an object is 

 good, it is of importance, if possible, to discover the conditions 



