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CHAPTER IV
PHILOSOPHICAL REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN SYMBOLISM
We now propose to offer a few remarks on the philosophical reasons there seem to be for concluding that Ecclesiastical Architecture has some esoteric meaning, some figurative adaptation, more than can be appreciated, or even discerned, by the casual observer, to the uses which produced it, and which have always regulated it. We venture to approach this consideration, however, rather from a feeling that our Essay would be incomplete without some reference to this kind of argument, than from any idea of our own ability to treat on subjects so abstract and infinite; and fearing that we may not be able clearly to express or dissect those thoughts which, nevertheless, appear to our own minds both true and very important.
It is little better than a truism to assert that there is an intimate correspondence and relation between cause and effect: yet this thought opens the way to a very wide field of speculation. Mind cannot act upon matter without the material result being closely related to the mental intention which originated it: the fact that anything exists adapted to a certain end or use is alone enough to presuppose the end or use, who can see a
, without distinguishing its relation to the {lii} want or necessity which brought about
? In short, the
, whatever it may be, not only answers to that which called it forth, but, in some sort, represents materially, or symbolises, the abstract volition or operation of the mind which originated it. Show us a pitcher, a skewer, or any of the simplest utensils designed for the most obvious purposes: do not the cavity of the one, and the piercing point of the other, at once set forth and symbolise the