(b) The points of fundamental importance, which emphasize the dwelling-house as the basic type of the temple, may be in all essential particulars enumerated as follows. If we consider with closer attention the house in its mechanical relation to itself we shall find, in accordance with what we have already stated, on the one hand, masses of architectural form which serve as support and, on the other, those that are supported both being united for stability and security. Thirdly, we have before us the definite aspect of enclosure and limitation according to the three dimensions of length, breadth, and height. A construction, moreover, which, by the fact of its being a mutual correlation of definite aspects distinct from each other, is a concrete whole, is bound to declare this unity in its constitution. So we find here that essential differences arise which perforce assert themselves no less in their division and specific elaboration than they do in their rational connexus.
(α) Of first importance in this respect to consider is the aspect of service in the way of support. When we speak of masses that support we commonly, under the influence of every-day needs, think of the wall as the most secure and reliable means of support. Support as such, however, as we have already seen, is not the exclusive principle of the wall; for the wall serves essentially as a means of enclosure and connection, and for this reason is a predominant feature in the romantic type of building. What is the peculiarity of Greek architecture is this, that it gives direct form to the principle of support by itself, and for this object employs columns as a fundamental contribution to the purpose and beauty of its architecture.
(αα) The aim of the column is to support and only this; and although a series of columns set up in a straight line make a boundary, such an enclosure falls short of a secure wall or partition, and is, in fact, expressly cancelled by the genuine partition and placed in a position of free independence. Owing to this exclusive object of support which pertains to the column, it is of first importance that it should display the aspect of such a purpose relatively to the weight which rests upon it. Consequently it should neither be too strong nor too slender, nor again too compressed, not mount upwards to such a height and with such ease as though the weight upon it was not treated seriously.
(ββ) And just as this column is thus differentiated from the enclosing wall, or fence, it is further from another point of view distinct from the mere post. In other words, the post is fixed directly in the ground and ceases with like directness at the precise point where a weight is reposed upon it. For which reason its determinate length, its commencement and termination equally appear as a negative limitation by means of something else, as a determinacy which is the result of chance, which it does not possess in its own right. Commencement and termination, however, are defining characteristics, which are part of the very notion of the supporting column, and consequently must declare themselves in it as the conditions[85] of its own substance. This is the ground of the fact that architecture, in the elaboration of its beauty, assigns to the column a base and a capital. In the Tuscan order, no doubt, we find no base; the column springs immediately from the ground. This being so, however, the length appears to the vision as something accidental. We are ignorant whether the column has not been to some undefined extent driven into the soil by the superimposed weight. In order that its commencement must not expose this undefined and accidental appearance it must with intention have the foot assigned to it, on which it stands, and which expressly enables us to recognize the commencement as in reality such. Art will therefore affirm as part of its function that the column begins at a certain place and for the rest it will make the security, and stable subsistence obvious to the eyes, and set the vision at rest in this respect also. For similar reasons our column should terminate in a capital, which is quite as much evidence of the real function of being a support as it is an affirmation of the fact that the column terminates here. This conception of a commencement and conclusion which are both deliberate is what affords us, in fact, the profounder explanation of base and capital. An analogous case is that of a cadence in music, which requires a secure resolution, or that of a book which should terminate without a full stop, or should start off without a capital letter, in the making of which, however, especially in the Middle Ages, large illuminated letters have been employed, with similar decorations at the work's conclusion, in order to bring prominently before the mind the facts of commencement and termination. However much, therefore, both base and capital appear to exceed what is obviously required we must not regard them as a decorative superfluity, or think of simply deducing them from the example of Egyptian columns, which still imitate the type of the vegetable kingdom. Figures of organic design, such as are represented by sculpture in animal and human form, begin and terminate in the free outlines they themselves present, for it is the rational organism itself, which gives outline to the form working thereon from its own intrinsic nature. Architecture, on the contrary, possesses for the column and its shapes nothing beyond the mechanical relation of support, and the spatial distance from the ground to the point where the weight that is supported terminates the column. Art, however, is bound to emphasize and disclose the particular aspects which lie together in this determinate relation for the reason that they are essential features of the column. Its precise length and its twofold boundary both above and below, that is, no less than its relation as support, must consequently not appear as coming to it incidentally and by virtue of something else, but must also be represented as immanent in its very being.
With respect to the form of column other than its base and capital, it is in the first place round, circular-shaped, for it has to stand up in free and independent self-seclusion. The most essentially simple, securely exclusive, rationally defined[86], and most regular line is in fact the circle. For this reason the column already proves from its shape that it is not adapted to form an even surface when placed in adjacent rows, as is the case with adjacent posts which are squared to the rectangular corner, and so present walls and partitions, but it has merely the object to offer a support under its own self-limitation. Moreover the columnar structure is ordinarily reduced in size gradually, as it ascends from one-third of its height, it becomes less in circumference and thickness, because the portions beneath have to carry that above, and it is felt necessary to emphasize and make obvious also this mechanical relation of the several parts of the column itself. Finally, we frequently find that columns are grooved; the reason of this is twofold, first, essentially to diversify the simple form, and secondly to make the columns appear more thick by means of such a division where this is necessary.
(γγ) Although, then, the column is set up in independent isolation it has none the less to make it appear evident that it is not placed there for its own sake, but as subservient to the mass which it is erected to support. In so far as the house requires a boundary on every side the singular column is therefore not sufficient, but others have to be placed adjacent to it, in other words we come upon the definite conception of a diversity of columns placed in a series. And when several columns support the same weight this common service is at the same time that which determines the equal height which they all possess and which unites them together, in other words the beam. This marks the transition from the aspect of support to the opposed object supported.
(β) That which columns support is the entablature superimposed. The relation of most importance to be considered here is that of rectangularity. Not merely in its relation to the ground, but also in that to the entablature the supporting structure must be rectangular. For the horizontal position is by the laws of gravity that which is alone intrinsically the most stable and fitting, and the right angle the only definitely secure one. The acute and obtuse angles are, on the contrary, indefinite, and both vary in their degree and are subject to contingency.
We may differentiate between the component parts of the entablature as follows:
(αα) The architrave, that is, the main beam, rests immediately upon the columns which stand adjacent in a direct line of equal height; this unites the columns together and places on them a weight shared equally. As beam, and nothing more, it merely requires the form of four level surfaces mutually related as rectangular in all three dimensions and their abstract regularity. Owing to the fact, however, that the architrave as to one part of it is supported by the columns, and in another constitutes the stay of the rest of the entablature, and it is from this latter again that itself receives the necessary relation of being a support, progressive architecture also places in external relief this twofold aspect of the main beam by emphasizing in the upper portions of the aspect of support by means of jutting plinths and so forth. In this respect therefore the main beam is not merely related to the columns which support it, but in like degree to other burdens which repose upon it.
(ββ) These in the first instance constitute the frieze. The border or frieze consists in one part of it of the tops of the joists[87], which rest on the entablature, in another part of the spaces between the same. For this reason the frieze contains more essential differences than those distinguishing the architrave, and is bound to emphasize them more sharply, especially in the case where architecture, although executed in stone materials, follows more stringently the fundamental type of the wood construction. This is supplied us by the distinction between triglyphs and metopes. In other words triglyphs are the tops of the beams which are divided into three spaces, the metopes are the rectangular spaces between the separate triglyphs. In former times they were in all probability left bare, in later, however, they are filled up[88], nay, even covered over and decorated with reliefs.