temple gives the eye
is that an order and a method has been communicated to stones, so that
they speak and geometrize, become tender or sublime with expression."
All truly great and beautiful works of architecture from the Egyptian
pyramids to the cathedrals of Ile-de-France--are harmoniously
proportioned, their principal and subsidiary masses being related,
sometimes obviously, more often obscurely, to certain symmetrical
figures of geometry, which though invisible to the sight and not
consciously present in the mind of the beholder, yet perform the
important function of cooerdinating the entire fabric into one easily
remembered whole. Upon some such principle is surely founded what
Symonds calls "that severe and lofty art of composition which seeks
the highest beauty of design in architectural harmony supreme, above
the melodies of gracefulness of detail."

[Illustration 65: THE EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE IN ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE]

[Illustration 66: THE HEXAGRAM IN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE]

There is abundant evidence in support of the theory that the
builders of antiquity, the masonic guilds of the Middle Ages, and
the architects of the Italian Renaissance, knew and followed certain
rules, but though this theory be denied or even disproved--if after
all these men obtained their results unconsciously--their creations
so lend themselves to a geometrical analysis that the claim for the
existence of certain canons of proportion, based on geometry, remains
unimpeached.

[Illustration 67]

[Illustration 68]

The plane figures principally employed in determining architectural
proportion are the circle, the equilateral triangle, and the
square--which also yields the right angled isosceles triangle. It
will be noted that these are the two dimensional correlatives of the
sphere, the tetrahedron and the cube, mentioned as being among the
determining forms in molecular structure. The question naturally
arises, why the circle, the equilateral triangle and the square?
Because, aside from the fact that they are of all plane figures the
most elementary, they are intimately related to the body of man, as
has been shown (Illustration 45), and the body of man is as it were
the architectural archetype. But this simply removes the inquiry to
a different field, it is not an answer. Why is the body of man so
constructed and related? This leads us, as does every question, to
the threshold of a mystery upon which theosophy alone is able to thro