The architecture of humanism; a study in the history of taste

viii THE ARCHITECTUREOF

HUMANISM

Roman,Mediaevalor Georgianarchitects,

orit

must

be

'

original

'

and

'

spontaneous,'thatis,it

mustbeat

pains to avoid this resemblance

;

or

it must strike

somehappy compromise between

these opposites

;

and

soforthindefinitely.

Ifthese

axioms

were

frankly

untrue,

theywould

be

easytodismiss

;

iftheywerebasedonfullyreasoned

theories,theywouldbeeasy,atanyrate,todiscuss.

They are

neither.

We

have

few

'

fully reasoned

'

theories,andthese,it willbeseen, are flagrantlyat

variancewiththefactstobe

explained. Wesubsist

on
a

number

ofarchitectural habits, on scraps of

tradition, on caprices andprejudices, and
aboveall

on this mass of more
or less specious axioms,of

half-truths,
unrelated, uncriticised and
often con-

tradictory, by means
of which thereis nobuilding

so bad that

it cannot with a little

ingenuity be

justified, or so good

that it cannot plausibly

be

condemned.

Under

these circumstances,

discussion is

almost

impossible, and it is

natural that criticism

should

becomedogmatic.

Yetdogmatic

criticismisbarren,

andthehistory

ofarchitecture,

robbed

ofanystandard

ofvalue,

isbarrenalso.

It

appearstome

thatif

wedesireany

clearnessin:

this

matter,we

aredriven

froma

priori

sestheticsto

the

history

oftaste,

andfromthe

history

oftasteto

the

history

ofideas.

It is, I

believe,

from

afailure