CHAPTER I

THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE

APHORISM 4.All architecture proposes an effect on the human mind, not merely a service to the human frame.²

§ 1. ARCHITECTURE is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.¹

It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry, to distinguish carefully between Architecture and Building.*

To build,-literally, to confirm,³-is by common understanding to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or receptacle of a considerable

* This distinction is a little stiff and awkward in terms, but not in thought. And it is perfectly accurate, though stiff, even in terms. It is the addition of

¹ [In the MS. these words read first “health, strength, and pleasure;” then “health, happiness, and pleasure,” and finally as in the text. A draft of another opening to this chapter is also among the MS., and runs as follows:-

“Architecture is that art which taking up, and admitting as conditions of her working, the necessities and uses of the building, makes it also agreeable to the eye, or venerable, or honourable by the addition of certain useless characters on such principles as I am about to endeavour to develope.

“Thus: in devotional buildings; it is not the art of architecture which fits them to receive, and entertain with comfort, a certain required number of persons engaged in religious offices. That is the ecclesiastical builder’s business, not the Architect’s. Though often the first and most essential requirement, it is not the Act of architecture which accomplishes it. It is no more Architecture that builds a convenient church than it is architecture which builds a comfortable carriage, or a safe sailing ship. One receptacle is small and another large, one is of stone and of wood, one stands and another floats-accidental differences these of no consequence whatsoever as regards the idea of Art,-they are all receptacles for people: which must be built on certain scientific principles, and the persons who build them are builders: church builders, coach builders, or ship builders-very able men, sometimes very necessarily able, if they are to build well: much more able than many architects-but not therefore to be called by a wrong name. So also in military works....”]

² [The aphorism in the text, in black-letter in the 1880 edition, is “Architecture is the art ... power, and pleasure.” Ruskin in The Poetry of Architecture, written eleven years before, had already made this distinction clear: see Vol. I. p. 5.]

³ [The etymology here suggested seems to make some confusion between the Old English word “build,” of which the fundamental senses are “to construct a dwelling,” “to take up one’s abode,” and the Latin synonyms.]

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