113. House Building and Architecture
The history of human building makes a first impression of an endless tangle. Every people rears some sort of habitations, and however rude these are, structural principles are involved. Obviously, too, geography and climate are bound to have at least a delimiting influence. The Eskimo of the Arctic cannot build houses of wood; the inhabitants of a coral reef in the Pacific could not, however much they might wish, develop a style in brick. In structures not used as dwellings, their purpose necessarily affects their form. A temple is likely to be made on a different plan from a court of law. Temples themselves may vary according to the motives and rituals of the religions which they serve.
Bewilderment begins to abate as soon as one ceases trying to contemplate all buildings reared by human hands. Obviously a dwelling erected by a small family group for the utilitarian purpose of shelter is likely to be more subject to immediate adaptations to climate than a large communal structure serving some purpose such as the service of a deity. If consideration be restricted still further, to religious or public buildings set up with the idea of permanence, another class of causes making for variability begins to be eliminated. A structure intended as an enduring monument is reared with consideration to the impression that it will create in the minds of future generations. Its emotional potentialities, be these evoked by its mere size, by the æsthetic nature of its design, or by a combination of the two, come into the forefront. Such permanent buildings being in stone or brick, techniques which flourish in wood or other temporary materials are eliminated. Finally, a monumental structure is possible only at the hands of a community of some size. An unstable group of nomads, a thinly scattered agricultural population, cannot assemble in sufficient numbers even for periods each year, to carry out the long-continued labors that are necessary. The aggregation of numbers of men in one spot is always accompanied by specialization in advancement of the arts. Consequently the very fact that a structure is monumental involves the probability that its builders are able to rise above the limitations of mere necessity, and can in some degree execute products of their imagination.