e life of the school. Sometimes the variety is in one
feature, sometimes in another; it may be in the capitals or crockets,
in the niches or the traceries, or in all together, but in some one or
other of the features it will be found always. If the mouldings are
constant, the surface sculpture will change; if the capitals are of a
fixed design, the traceries will change; if the traceries are
monotonous, the capitals will change; and if even, as in some fine
schools, the early English for example, there is the slightest
approximation to an unvarying type of mouldings, capitals, and floral
decoration, the variety is found in the disposition of the masses, and
in the figure sculpture.

I must now refer for a moment, before we quit the consideration of
this, the second mental element of Gothic, to the opening of the third
chapter of the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, in which the distinction
was drawn (Sec. 2) between man gathering and man governing; between his
acceptance of the sources of delight from nature, and his development
of authoritative or imaginative power in their arrangement: for the two
mental elements, not only of Gothic, but of all good architecture,
which we have just been examining, belong to it, and are admirable in
it, chiefly as it is, more than any other subject of art, the work of
man, and the expression of the average power of man. A picture or poem
is often little more than a feeble utterance of man's admiration of
something out of himself; but architecture approaches more to a
creation of his own, born of his necessities, and expressive of his
nature. It is also, in some sort, the work of the whole race, while the
picture or statue are the work of one only, in most cases more highly
gifted than his fellows. And therefore we may expect that the first two
elements of good architecture should be expressive of some great truths
commonly belonging to the whole race, and necessary to be understood or
felt by them in all their work that they do under the sun. And observe
what they are: the confession of Imperfection, and the confession of
Desire of Change. The building of the bird and the bee needs not
express anything like this. It is perfect and unchanging. But just
because we are something better than birds or bees, our building must
confess that we have not reached the perfection we can imagine, and
cannot rest in the condition we have attained. If we pretend to have
reached either perfection or sati