are, however, preserved until we come to Hope: she is still praying, but
she is praying to the sun only: _The hand of God is gone_.

Is not this a curious and striking type of the spirit which had then
become dominant in the world, forgetting to see God's hand in the light
He gave; so that in the issue, when the light opened into the
Reformation on the one side, and into full knowledge of ancient
literature on the other, the one was arrested and the other perverted?

SECTION XLIX. Such is the nature of the accidental evidence on which I
shall depend for the proof of the inferiority of character in the
Renaissance workmen. But the proof of the inferiority of the work itself
is not so easy, for in this I have to appeal to judgments which the
Renaissance work has itself distorted. I felt this difficulty very
forcibly as I read a slight review of my former work, "The Seven Lamps,"
in "The Architect:" the writer noticed my constant praise of St. Mark's:
"Mr. Ruskin thinks it a very beautiful building! We," said the
Architect, "think it a very ugly building." I was not surprised at the
difference of opinion, but at the thing being considered so completely a
subject of opinion. My opponents in matters of painting always assume
that there _is_ such a thing as a law of right, and that I do not
understand it: but my architectural adversaries appeal to no law, they
simply set their opinion against mine; and indeed there is no law at
present to which either they or I can appeal. No man can speak with
rational decision of the merits or demerits of buildings: he may with
obstinacy; he may with resolved adherence to previous prejudices; but
never as if the matter could be otherwise decided than by a majority of
votes, or pertinacity of partisanship. I had always, however, a clear
conviction that there _was_ a law in this matter: that good
architecture might be indisputably discerned and divided from the bad;