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processes;—the one, which we may regard as the Aristotelian, by the synthetic construction from first principles; and the other, which we may term the Baconian, by analysis and inductive abstraction from experiment.

The first system of evolution, I need scarcely remind those who have studied the works of the late illustrious Master of Trinity, is in the highest degree dangerous, while the second is the only safe process.

We may therefore hope, while going slowly, to go most safely, if before attempting to examine that synthetical system, which we may believe to have been evolved by the Greeks, with wonderful philosophical ingenuity, we proceed to test for the presence of theory,—as a chemist might any fluid for traces of alcohol or any other special essence,—each of the successive dominant schools into which architecture has been divided historically.

In this examination I purpose following the same order I pursued in announcing to you, far too briefly yesterday, the historical succession of the various styles.

When we look to the theory which appears to have animated the ancient Egyptians in their enormous structures, which, as I told you, seem to have been almost entirely limited to tombs and temples, we find, on the threshold of inquiry, that their first aim appears to have been to create a sort of protest against the mutability of nature, and man's evanescence. The aim was not only to be great to contemporaries but to be great for ever; and the means by which this sentiment of greatness, whether of the Deity, or of his earthly representative, the Sovereign, was sought to be expressed, was through the sentiment of bulk. With the Egyptians everything was colossal, and the greater the power of the object represented the greater the bulk of the representation.

We find them, in their ranges of colossal columns, already acquainted with the principle which Burke has recognized as one of the elements of sublimity,—the heightening the