individualism penetrated society, and began to show itself as the
Renaissance, architecture declined. The Egyptian pyramids are marvels to
us, because we are accustomed to look upon the laborer as a man. But
once allow that he is only so much brute force,--cheap, readily
available, and to be had in endless supply, but as a moral entity less
to be respected than a cat or a heron, and the marvel ceases. Should not
the building be great to which man himself is sacrificed? Later, the
builders are no longer slaves; but man is still subordinate to his own
work, adores the work of his hands. This stands for him, undertakes to
represent him, though, from its partial nature, it can only typify
certain aspects or functions of him. A Gothic cathedral is an attempt at
a universal expression of humanity, a stone image of society, in which
each particle, insignificant by itself, has its meaning in the
connection. It was the fresh interest in the attempt that gave birth to
that wonderful architecture. This is the interest it still has, but now
only historical, since the discovery was made that the particle is
greater than the mass,--that it is for the sake of the individual that
society and its institutions exist. Ever since, a process of
disintegration has been going on, resulting in a progressive reversal of
the previous relation. Not the private virtues of the structure, but its
uses, are now uppermost, and ever more and more developed. Even in our
own short annals something of this process may be traced. Old gentlemen
complain of the cost of our houses. The houses of their boyhood, they
say, were handsomer and better built, yet cost less. There is some truth
in this, for the race of architect-builders hardly reaches into this
century. But if the comparison be pushed into details, we soon come to
the conviction that the owners of these houses were persons whose habits
were, in many respects, uncouth and barbarous. It is easy to provide in
the lump; but with decency, privacy, independence,--in short, with a
high degree of respect on the part of the members of the household for