996 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS’ NESTS. 
Man ranges over the whole earth, and exists under 
the most varied conditions, leading necessarily to 
equally varied habits. He migrates—he makes wars 
and conquests—one race mingles with another—dif- | 
ferent customs are brought into contact—the habits 
of a migrating or conquering race are modified by 
the different circumstances of a new country. The 
civilized race which conquered Egypt must have 
developed its mode of building in a forest country 
where timber was abundant, for it is not probable, 
that the idea of cylindrical columns originated in a 
country destitute of trees. The pyramids might have 
been built by an indigenous race, but not the temples 
of El Uksor and Karnak. In Grecian architecture, 
almost every characteristic feature can be traced to 
an origin in wooden buildings. Tle columns, the 
architrave, the frieze, the fillets, the cantelevers, the 
form of the roof, all point to an origin in some southern 
forest-clad country, and strikingly corroborate the 
view derived from philology, that Greece was colo- 
nised from north-western India. But to erect columns 
and span them with huge blocks of stone, or marble, * 
is not an act of reason, but one of pure unreasoning 
imitation. The arch is the only true and reasonable 
mode of covering over wide spaces with stone, and 
therefore, Grecian architecture, however exquisitely 
beautiful, is false in principle, and is by no means a 
good example of the application of reason to the art 
of building. And what do most of us do at the pre- 
sent day but imitate the buildings of those that have 
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