n architecture, Greek architecture, Gothic architecture,
whatever, nevertheless, may be the diversity of form inherent in their
nature, the same signification also; that is to say, liberty, the
people, man.

In the Hindu, Egyptian, or Romanesque architecture, one feels the
priest, nothing but the priest, whether he calls himself Brahmin,
Magian, or Pope. It is not the same in the architectures of the people.
They are richer and less sacred. In the Phoenician, one feels the
merchant; in the Greek, the republican; in the Gothic, the citizen.

The general characteristics of all theocratic architecture are
immutability, horror of progress, the preservation of traditional lines,
the consecration of the primitive types, the constant bending of all
the forms of men and of nature to the incomprehensible caprices of the
symbol. These are dark books, which the initiated alone understand how
to decipher. Moreover, every form, every deformity even, has there
a sense which renders it inviolable. Do not ask of Hindoo, Egyptian,
Romanesque masonry to reform their design, or to improve their
statuary. Every attempt at perfecting is an impiety to them. In these
architectures it seems as though the rigidity of the dogma had
spread over the stone like a sort of second petrifaction. The general
characteristics of popular masonry, on the contrary, are progress,
originality, opulence, perpetual movement. They are already sufficiently
detached from religion to think of their beauty, to take care of it, to
correct without relaxation their parure of statues or arabesques. They
are of the age. They have something human, which they mingle incessantly
with the divine symbol under which they still produce. Hence,
edifices comprehensible to every soul, to every intelligence, to every
imagination, symbolical still, but as easy to understand as nature.
Between theocratic architecture and this there is the difference
that lies between a sacred language and a vulgar language, between
hieroglyphics and art, between Solomon and Phidias.

If the reader will sum up what we have hitherto briefly, very briefly,
indicated, neglecting a thousand proofs and also a thousand objections
of detail, he will be led to this: that architecture was, down to the
fifteenth century, the chief register of humanity; that in that interval
not a thought which is in any degree complicated made its appearance in
the world, which has not been worked into an edifice; that every p