THE MSS. OF “THE SEVEN LAMPS” 283

true or right I have no fear of their not being acknowledged, else I should contradict what I have just said, that every man’s sense and feeling are enough to determine for him what is right, or in other words, that the candid theorist’s is the easiest and perhaps least honourable of all necessary work. But in order to account for the simplicity with which that work has been attempted, and for the speculative breadth of the greater number of the positions which I have taken, I can only allege my conviction of the necessity of extricating from the confused mass of partial traditions and dogmata with which the art has been encumbered by its unconsidered practice, those large principles of right which are applicable to every stage, style and rank of it; which demand no conditions, imply no limitations, and which in brief I believe to be so verily the roots and head-most springs of all architectural success, that the highest measures of that success are attributable to this influence, and the lowest, without it, impossible. I do not think that I claim too much for these in calling them the Lamps of ...” (continued as in the text, p. 22 above).

CHAPTER II

The following seems to be a rejected draft of the opening portions of the second Chapter:-

“There is not a more dangerous enemy to the practice of any virtue than an over regard, or even an habitual reference, to its results. Indeed it is in strictness of language not virtue, but worldly wisdom, with whose biddings we comply, when our object is the award which has been divinely assigned to the doing of duty; instead of the duty itself. This is both confessed and comprehended in deeds of charity or of devotion. The love is the virtue, not the act or exhibition of love; and although love cannot exist without acting, yet the act would be useless if the act were caused by any other motive than love. And the love is as much a virtue when it is fruitless as when it is effectual. This is the first and most trite of moral principles. Yet with respect to the virtue of truthfulness we are apt to lose sight of its essence as a character well pleasing and divine; and to regard only its necessity in the dealings of men with each other; so that deception which is not harmful is sometimes called innocent. Nevertheless truth is to be sought for its own sake as much as charity: and a breach of truth is criminal in itself, even though attended by no evil consequences, as a breach of charity is criminal, though not manifested in malignant action. I trust that there is no occasion for me to argue this point, when simply stated, and yet in consequence of our not often enough contemplating it, there has arisen such a laxness and flexibility in our practice of truthfulness, as frequently to leave the very estates of honour and dishonour divided only by a blind path. How much of evil has arisen in the world from the mere neglect, not the determined violation, but the idle and flippant regardlessness of truth in minor matters, I may more wisely leave the reader to consider than myself

[Version 0.04: March 2008]