304 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

there may also-must also-be a subordination and obedience of the parts of each other to some visible law, out of itself, but having reference to itself only (not to any upper order): some law which shall not oppress, but guide, limit, and sustain.

In the tenth chapter of the second volume of Modern Painters,¹ the reader will find that I traced one part of the beauty of God’s creation to the expression of a self-restrained liberty: that is to say, the image of that perfection of divine action, which, though free to work in arbitrary methods, works always in consistent methods, called by us Laws.

Now, correspondingly, we find that when these natural objects are to become subjects of the art of man, their perfect treatment is an image of the perfection of human action: a voluntary submission to divine law.

It was suggested to me but lately, by the friend to whose originality of thought I have before expressed my obligations,² Mr. Newton, that the Greek pediment, with its enclosed sculptures, represented to the Greek mind the law of Fate, confining human action within limits not to be overpassed. I do not believe the Greeks ever distinctly thought of this; but the instinct of all the human race, since the world began, agrees in some expression of such limitation as one of the first necessities of good ornament.* And this expression is heightened, rather than diminished, when some portion of the design slightly breaks the law to which the rest is subjected: it is like expressing the use of miracles in the divine government; or perhaps, in slighter degrees, the relaxing of a law, generally imperative, in compliance with some more imperative

* Some valuable remarks on this subject will be found in a notice of the Seven Lamps in the British Quarterly for August 1849 [p. 66].³ I think, however, the writer attaches too great importance ne out of many ornamental necessities.

¹ [See. i. ch. x. § 5, Vol. IV. p. 138; and cf. Vol. VIII. p. 249.]

² [See above, p. 274, and below, p. 460; and Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. p. 239.]

³ [For other references to this article, see below, pp. 335 n., 355.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]