An Elucidation of the Geometrical Principles of Gothic Architecture”

Abstract

Architecture, as the eldest sister of the arts, naturally claims attention from the members of a Polytechnic Society. It has ministered alike to the necessities, the comforts, and the luxuries of mankind. The architectural remains of the nations of antiquity (the unchanging testimonials of their former greatness) oppose, in the strongest manner, the reckless conclusions of the atheist. Could we possibly conceive the entire removal of every relic of former days, what a blank would the page of history present! The writings of the poets, the historians, and the philosophers of old, would appear as so many visionary and Utopian productions; but the architectural remains which an all-wise God has permitted to exist so long after the removal of the nations by which they were reared, tend, in a remarkable degree, to corroborate the prophetical and historical part of holy writ, and to explain the writings of heathen authors. It may be truly said that the Acropolis of Athens, and its beauteous structures, vouch for Pausanias, the pyramids of Ghiza for Herodotus, while Rome owes its most lasting celebrity to architecture. “Flinging back our thoughts upon the past,” we cannot contemplate the ruin of empires without noticing the peculiar character of the remains of their former architectural greatness and splendour. In Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, we look in vain for the dwellings of the former inhabitants. Of the gigantic works erected for warlike purposes but few remnants exist; but of temples reared, whether to the true or false Gods, ...