member, or lintel; it rarely stood alone as in the case of an Egyptian
obelisk. The columns of the Greek temples were reduced to those
proportions most consistent with strength and beauty, and the
intercolumnations were relatively greater than in Egyptian examples.
It may truly be said that Greek architecture exhibits the perfect
equality and equipoise of vertical and horizontal elements and these
only, no other factor entering in. Its graphic symbol would therefore
be composed of a vertical and a horizontal line (Illustration 3). The
Romans, while retaining the column and lintel of the Greeks, deprived
them of their structural significance and subordinated them to the
semicircular arch and the semi-cylindrical and hemispherical vault,
the truly characteristic and determining forms of Roman architecture.
Our symbol grows therefore by the addition of the arc of a circle
(Illustration 4). In Gothic architecture column, lintel, arch and
vault are all retained in changed form, but that which more than
anything else differentiates Gothic architecture from any style which
preceded it is the introduction of the principle of an equilibrium of
forces, of a state of balance rather than a state of rest, arrived at
by the opposition of one thrust with another contrary to it. This fact
can be indicated graphically by two opposing inclined lines, and
these united to the preceding symbol yield an accurate abstract of the
elements of Gothic architecture (Illustration 5).

[Illustration 4]

[Illustration 5]

All this is but an unusual application of a familiar theosophic
teaching, namely, that it is the method of nature on every plane and
in every department not to omit anything that has gone before, but to