178 



This is 

 probably 

 paralleled 

 in the de- 

 velopinent 

 of species. 



HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. 



[chap. 



Intelli- 

 gence in 

 art modi- 

 fying the 

 materials 

 given to it 

 by unin- 

 telligent 

 habit, 

 without 

 violating 

 the con- 

 sistency of 

 a style. 



Instance 

 in the 

 modifica- 

 tion of 

 Gothic 

 architec- 

 ture for 

 the display 

 of stained 

 glass. 



contrary, it completes — the parallel between tlie history of 

 the morphology of art and that of the morphological 

 changes in the development of species, if it is true, as I 

 have maintained in a previous chapter, that organic 

 changes must have taken place at particular periods with 

 exceptional rapidity.^ 



I have stated that although there is beyond doubt an 

 intelligent, or logical, principle in language, yet in the 

 present state of the science of language we know very 

 little of the mode of its action. It is otherwise in the 

 history of art : in the morphology of art, as well as in 

 organic morphology, the action of intelligence is clearly 

 traceable in modifying the results of unintelligent habit. 

 I have shown in a previous chapter how the organizing 

 intelligence works with the materials given to it by 

 hereditary habit, so as to modify for new purposes what 

 is homologically the same organ, and yet so as to retain a 

 much closer resemblance to the original model than is 

 needed for the new purposes ; as is seen, for instance, in 

 comparing the wing of the bat with the leg of the quad- 

 ruped.2 This action has its parallel in the history of art, 

 where the artist's purpose, which is the intelligent principle, 

 modifies the action of the habitual principle of traditional 

 style. The best, or at least the most curious instance of 

 this that I know of, is the way in which the Gothic style 

 of architecture was modified, without losing its distinctive 

 characters, in consequence of the introduction of stained 

 glass ; the display of which, without injury to the other 

 beauties of the style, became the object of the Gothic 

 architects.^ 



The principles of the science of life and mind are still 

 Politics, more remarkably applicable to politics, or the science of 

 human society. 



It has become a commonplace, that " constitutions are 

 not made, but grow ; " the same is true of language, of art, 



1 See the chapter on the Eate of Variation (Chap. XXVI.). 



2 See the chapter on Comparative Morphology (Chap. XX.). 



2 See Fergusson's Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, vol. ii. 



