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

THE BIOLOGICAL

FALLACY

171

century revoke. Here wasno

processionofordered

causes, but a

pageant of adventures,

a fantastic

masqueoftaste.

Withwhatresult

forcriticism? BecauseRenais-

sancearchitecturefitsillintothe

evolutionaryscheme,

itison everyside

upbraided. Becauseitswillwas

consciouslyself-guided,itiscalledcapricious.

Because

itfailstoillustrate

theusuallessonsofarchitectural

development,itiscalledunmeaning.

Becausethere

isnosequence

;

because

theterms are

'

unrelated

'

—

or

related not strictly, as in the olderstyles,

by

'

evolution

'

—

^the terms areipso

facto valueless and

false.

AcertainIdndofintellectualinterestisfrus-

trated: therefore aesthetic interest is

void.

This is

theevolutionaryfallacyin

taste.

At its hands, as at the hands ofthe Romantic

Fallacy, Renaissance architecture

suffersbyneglect

and it

suffers by misinterpretation. It suffers by

neglect: the historian, committed to his formulas

of sequence,

is constrained to pass hurriedly by a

style which fits themso ill andillustrates them so

little. But it suffers also by misinterpretation, for

thatslight

accountoftheRenaissance

stylewhichis

vouchsafedisgiven,asbestmaybe,intheformulas

ofthe rest.

It

is drilled,

with the

most falsifying

results,

into the lowest common termsof

an archi-

tectural evolution. The prejudice to taste is not

merelythatfactsarestud|ed^ratherthanvalues
;

it