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142 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE
APHORISM 20. That is most “natural” which is most easily and ordinarily seen.1
to be set down in the architect’s contract, as “For Monstrification.” I believe that we regard these customary deformities with a savage complacency, as an Indian does his flesh patterns and paint (all nations being in certain degrees and senses savage). I believe that I can prove them to be monstrous, and I hope hereafter to do so conclusively; but, meantime, I can allege in defence of my persuasion nothing but this fact of their being unnatural, to which the reader must attach such weight as he thinks it deserves. There is, however, a peculiar difficulty in using this proof; it requires the writer to assume, very impertinently, that nothing is natural but what he has seen or supposes to exist. I would not do this; for I suppose there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of the universe an example of it may be found. But I think I am justified in considering those forms to be most natural which are most frequent; or, rather, that on the shapes which in the everyday world are familiar to the eyes of men, God has stamped those characters of beauty which He has made it man’s nature to love; while in certain exceptional forms He has shown that the adoption of the others was not a matter of necessity, but part of the adjusted harmony of creation. I believe that thus we may reason from Frequency to Beauty, and vice versâ; that, knowing a thing to be frequent, we may assume it to be beautiful; and assume that which is most frequent to be most beautiful: I mean, of course, visibly frequent; for the forms of things which are hidden in caverns of the earth, or in the anatomy of animal frames, are evidently not intended by their Maker to bear the habitual gaze of man.* And,
* This is an excellent aphorism; and I am proud of having so early seen the danger of anatomical study, so often dwelt on in my later works.2 [1880.]
1 [The text of the aphorism, in black-letter in the 1880 edition, is from “But I think I am justified ...” down to “the habitual gaze of man.”]
2 [See passages collected in the note in Vol. IV. p. 155, and General Index to this edition.]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
