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Show I I . .... .... -' ' . 200 THE LOGARITHMIC CURVE. balanced, and would float in the air even though t~e walls and upright pillars were removed. St. George s chapel is one of many instances of that ~ost sub: lime and most natural of all styles of a!ch1te~ture, and there cannot be a better material mc~ntive to religious feelinO' than the view of a roof whic~ e~en to common obs~rvation is independent of gravitat~on -the test and characteristic of every thing matenal. . The pendant drops which belong to. the same style of architecture have the same aenal and floatmg character, just because the . ~urves by me~ns ~f which they me~t into th~ cmlmgs are loganthmtc curves; and it IS not a little remarkable that w:hen two pieces of fla~ glass. are placed on e~g: m a coloured liquid, w1th theu one ends touchme.,. a~d their other ends a little asunder, the coloured hqmd rises between them, so that its ~pper edge fon~s the same kind of curve; and that IS a proof that, .1f we could see it the column of evaporated mmsture would have' the same beautiful and self-balanced appearance. . It may seem not a little singular that the Cathol~c architects should have applied to th.e roof~ of thmr churches that very curve, by assumm.g whi?h water hangs poised in the air; and that consideratiOn alone should teach us to pause before we arroga.te to ourselves, in these modern times, the. perfectiOn of. all science. Columne and an architrave, proportl?n them as we will, and sculpture them as we may With the richest foliage and the most ~raceful figures, have still all the heaviness of lump1sh matter abo~t them. The columns seem pressed by the architrave . and if that is overloaded, or the column~ to.o far as~nder, the building, however graceful. the mdividual parts, however costly the. m~tena~s, and however exquisite the workmanship,. IS pamful to look upon, because we feel as ~hough It 'Yere unstable and about to be crushed by Its own we~ght. Ev~n if i't is a circular arch, we feel apprehensiOns for Its ASCENT OF SMOKE. 201 stability if it exceeds a certain span, though we have the rainbow and the sky to give us impressions of the stability of the circle; but in the case of those logarithmic curves, we never ieel that a large span is less stable than the very smallest. Here there is one consideration which, though it cannot be said directly to belong to the observation of nature, is yet worthy of a little meditation. It is this :-The Grecian and Roman architecture, which probably carries the proportions of material form as far as they can be carried in respect of beauty, just as the statues of their gods and goddesses carried the proportions of 'the human figure to a degree even of ideal perfection,-that architecture and that statuary were the art of a people whose gods were material,-the perfection of material gods, if you will; just as the architecture and sculpture were the perfection of those arts; but still the gods have the idea of material beings inseparable from them, just as much as it is impossible to separate the idea of weight and pressure from a Grecian or a Roman building. On the other hand, the logarithmic curve belongs to Christian architecture, to the true religion- to that religion whose God is a Spirit; and therefore, though the coincidence is a wonderful .one, it is in perfect congruity and keeping that the roofs of the fanes devoted to his worship should be thus divested of all the apparent heaviness, and consequent fall and decay, which are the inseparable attributes of mere matter. :While the evaporated moisture is ascending in th1~ hyperbolic form (and the wind only gives it an oblique direction, by blowing it to one side) O'favitation resists its ascent, its own cohesion resi~ts both t~at and its lateral spread, and the resistance of the air OJ?poses both. It is the same with every thing t~at ns~s by evaporation, or dispersion, through the au,-with odours, with sounds, and even with the air itself, when it is heated by some local cause at |
