Thus, down to the time of Gutenberg, architecture is the
principal writing, the universal writing. In that granite
book, begun by the Orient, continued by Greek and Roman
antiquity, the Middle Ages wrote the last page. Moreover,
this phenomenon of an architecture of the people following
an architecture of caste, which we have just been observing
in the Middle Ages, is reproduced with every analogous
movement in the human intelligence at the other great
epochs of history. Thus, in order to enunciate here only
summarily, a law which it would require volumes to develop:
in the high Orient, the cradle of primitive times, after
Hindoo architecture came Phoenician architecture, that opulent
mother of Arabian architecture; in antiquity, after Egyptian
architecture, of which Etruscan style and cyclopean monuments
are but one variety, came Greek architecture (of which the
Roman style is only a continuation), surcharged with the
Carthaginian dome; in modern times, after Romanesque
architecture came Gothic architecture. And by separating there
three series into their component parts, we shall find in the
three eldest sisters, Hindoo architecture, Egyptian architecture,
Romanesque architecture, the same symbol; that is to
say, theocracy, caste, unity, dogma, myth, God: and for
the three younger sisters, Phoenician architecture, Greek
architecture, Gothic architecture, whatever, nevertheless,
may be the diversity of form inherent in their nature, the same
signification also; that is to say, liberty, the people, man.
In the Hindu, Egyptian, or Romanesque architecture, one
feels the priest, nothing but the priest, whether he calls
himself Brahmin, Magian, or Pope. It is not the same in the
architectures of the people. They are richer and less sacred.
In the Phoenician, one feels the merchant; in the Greek, the
republican; in the Gothic, the citizen.
The general characteristics of all theocratic architecture are
immutability, horror of progress, the preservation of traditional
lines, the consecration of the primitive types, the constant
bending of all the forms of men and of nature to the
incomprehensible caprices of the symbol. These are dark
books, which the initiated alone understand how to decipher.
Moreover, every form, every deformity even, has there a
sense which renders it inviolable. Do not ask of Hindoo,
Egyptian, Romanesque masonry to reform their design, or
to improve their statuary. Every attempt at perfecting is
an impiety to them. In these architectures it seems as
though the rigidity of the dogma had spread over the
stone like a sort of second petrifaction. The general
characteristics of popular masonry, on the contrary, are progress,
originality, opulence, perpetual movement. They are already
sufficiently detached from religion to think of their beauty,
to take care of it, to correct without relaxation their parure
of statues or arabesques. They are of the age. They have
something human, which they mingle incessantly with the
divine symbol under which they still produce. Hence, edifices
comprehensible to every soul, to every intelligence, to
every imagination, symbolical still, but as easy to understand
as nature. Between theocratic architecture and this there is
the difference that lies between a sacred language and a
vulgar language, between hieroglyphics and art, between
Solomon and Phidias.