346 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

purposes, with which we have here no concern. As the embodiment of a wild superstition, and the representation of supernatural powers, their appeal to the imagination sets at utter defiance all judgment based on ordinary canons of law; and the magnificence of their treatment atones, in nearly every case, for the extravagance of their conception. I should not admit this appeal to the imagination, if it had been made by a nation in whom the powers of body and mind had been languid; but by the Lombard, strong in all the realities of human life, we need not fear being led astray: the visions of a distempered fancy are not indeed permitted to replace the truth, or set aside the laws of science: but the imagination which is thoroughly under the command of the intelligent will,* has a dominion indiscernible by science, and illimitable by law; and we may acknowledge the authority of the Lombardic gryphons in the mere splendour of their presence, without thinking idolatry an excuse for mechanical misconstruction, or dreading to be called upon in other cases, to admire a systemless architecture,¹ because it may happen to have sprung from an irrational religion.

* In all the wildness of the Lombardic fancy (described in Appendix 8), this command of the will over its action is as distinct as it is stern. The fancy is, in the early work of the nation, visibly diseased; but never the will, nor the reason.

¹ [It appears from the first draft of this passage in the MS. that Ruskin was thinking of Indian architecture-a subject to which his attention had early been called in connection with his prize poem, Salsette and Elephanta (see Vol. II. p. 90).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]