of Painting and Engraving'

Man, from the fact that he is the only intelligent being in creation,
desires to show his intelligence in his works. In order to do so he
makes them resemble himself in a measure, by impressing upon them the
characteristic of his intelligence, which is logic, and that of his
body, which is proportion. Architecture employs inorganic matter
alone--stone, marble, brick, iron, wood, when the sap has been dried out
of it and it ceases to be an organic substance; and yet, under the hand
of the architect, this inert matter expresses sentiments and feelings.
By subjecting it to the laws of order, symmetry, and proportion, in a
manner which appeals to the eye, he lends them a semblance of life and
an organism conceived after his own image. By this artificial
proportion, inert matter is raised to the dignity of the animal kingdom;
it is rendered eloquent and capable of expressing the soul of the
artist, and often that of a race.

But human monuments have still another point in common with the body.
Order, symmetry, and proportion are needed rigorously only on the
exterior. Within, general beauty no longer dominates, but individual
life. If we look at the interior of the human body we find no symmetry,
no arrangement but that demanded by the function of the organs. The
brain, it is true, has two symmetrical lobes, because the brain is
destined to a life of relation, to the life of intelligence. But in
their individual functions the life of the internal organs presents
another aspect. The stomach is a shapeless bag; the heart is a single
muscle which is not even placed in the centre; the left lung is longer
and narrower than the right; the spleen is a ganglion placed on the left
side without any corresponding organ; but all this mechanism, which
scientists consider wonderful in its irregularity, is hidden beneath a
layer of similar members which repeat each other and correspond at equal
distances from a central line, and constitute symmetry in animals,
beauty in man. Similar in this respect to the human body, architectural
monuments have a double life and a double aspect.

On the exterior, it is meet that they should be regular,
symmetrical--but symmetrical from left to right like man, not from top
to bottom nor from face to back. Their resemblance to man is further
shown by openings, which are as the eyes and ears of the persons who
inhabit them; their entrance occupies the centre of the edifice, as