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Part I--Prophecy

THE FOUNDATIONS

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_By Symbols is man guided and commanded, made happy, made
wretched. He everywhere finds himself encompassed with Symbols,
recognized as such or not recognized: the Universe is but one vast
Symbol of God; nay, if thou wilt have it, what is man himself but
a Symbol of God; is not all that he does symbolical; a revelation
to Sense of the mystic God-given force that is in him; a Gospel of
Freedom, which he, the Messiah of Nature, preaches, as he can, by
word and act? Not a Hut he builds but is the visible embodiment of
a Thought; but bears visible record of invisible things; but is,
in the transcendental sense, symbolical as well as real._

--THOMAS CARLYLE, _Sartor Resartus_
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CHAPTER I

_The Foundations_

Two arts have altered the face of the earth and given shape to the
life and thought of man, Agriculture and Architecture. Of the two, it
would be hard to know which has been the more intimately interwoven
with the inner life of humanity; for man is not only a planter and a
builder, but a mystic and a thinker. For such a being, especially in
primitive times, any work was something more than itself; it was a
truth found out. In becoming useful it attained some form, enshrining
at once a thought and a mystery. Our present study has to do with the
second of these arts, which has been called the matrix of
civilization.

When we inquire into origins and seek the initial force which carried
art forward, we find two fundamental factors--physical necessity and
spiritual aspiration. Of course, the first great impulse of all
architecture was need, honest response to the demand for shelter; but
this demand included a Home for the Soul, not less than a roof over
the head. Even in this response to primary need there was something
spiritual which carried it beyond provision for the body; as the men
of Egypt, for instance, wanted an indestructible resting-place, and so
built the pyramids. As Capart says, prehistoric art shows that this
utilitarian purpose was in almost every case blended with a religious,
or at least a magical, purpose.[1] The spiritual instinct, in seeking
to recreate types and to set up more sympathetic relations with the
universe, led to imitation, to ideas of proportion, to the passion for
beauty, and to the effort after perfection.

Man has been always a builder, and nowhere has he shown himself more
si