The Beautiful Necessity | Page 4

its new vehicle of
manifestation; also in the continuity and increasing complexity of the
development of that impulse in manifestation; each "incarnation"

summarizing all those which have gone before, and adding some new
factor peculiar to itself alone; each being a growth, a life, with periods
corresponding to childhood, youth, maturity and decadence; each also
typifying in its entirety some single one of these life-periods, and
revealing some special aspect or power of the Self.
For the sake of clearness and brevity the consideration of only one of
several architectural evolutions will be attempted: that which, arising in
the north of Africa, spread to southern Europe, thence to the northwest
of Europe and to England--the architecture, in short, of the so-called
civilized world.
This architecture, anterior to the Christian era, may be broadly divided
into three great periods, during which it was successively practiced by
three peoples: the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans. Then
intervened the Dark Ages, and a new art arose, the Gothic, which was a
flowering out in stone of the spirit of Christianity. This was in turn
succeeded by the Renaissance, the impulse of which remains to-day
unexhausted. In each of these architectures the peculiar genius of a
people and of a period attained to a beautiful, complete and coherent
utterance, and notwithstanding the considerable intervals of time which
sometimes separated them they succeeded one another logically and
inevitably, and each was related to the one which preceded and which
followed it in a particular and intimate manner.
The power and wisdom of ancient Egypt was vested in its priesthood,
which was composed of individuals exceptionally qualified by birth
and training for their high office, tried by the severest ordeals and
bound by the most solemn oaths. The priests were honored and
privileged above all other men, and spent their lives dwelling apart
from the multitude in vast and magnificent temples, dedicating
themselves to the study and practice of religion, philosophy, science
and art--subjects then intimately related, not widely separated as they
are now. These men were the architects of ancient Egypt: theirs the
minds which directed the hands that built those time-defying
monuments.
The rites that the priests practiced centered about what are known as
the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries. These consisted of
representations by means of symbol and allegory, under conditions and
amid surroundings the most awe-inspiring, of those great truths

concerning man's nature, origin and destiny of which the priests--in
reality a brotherhood of initiates and their pupils--were the custodians.
These ceremonies were made the occasion for the initiation of
neophytes into the order, and the advancement of the already initiated
into its successive degrees. For the practice of such rites, and others
designed to impress not the elect but the multitude, the great temples of
Egypt were constructed. Everything about them was calculated to
induce a deep seriousness of mind, and to inspire feelings of awe, dread
and even terror, so as to test the candidate's fortitude of soul to the
utmost.
The avenue of approach to an Egyptian temple was flanked on both
sides, sometimes for a mile or more, with great stone sphinxes--that
emblem of man's dual nature, the god emerging from the beast. The
entrance was through a single high doorway between two towering
pylons, presenting a vast surface sculptured and painted over with
many strange and enigmatic figures, and flanked by aspiring obelisks
and seated colossi with faces austere and calm. The large court thus
entered was surrounded by high walls and colonnades, but was open to
the sky. Opposite the first doorway was another, admitting to a
somewhat smaller enclosure, a forest of enormous carved and painted
columns supporting a roof through the apertures of which sunshine
gleamed or dim light filtered down. Beyond this in turn were other
courts and apartments culminating in some inmost sacred sanctuary.
Not alone in their temples, but in their tombs and pyramids and all the
sculptured monuments of the Egyptians, there is the same insistence
upon the sublimity, mystery and awefulness of life, which they seem to
have felt so profoundly. But more than this, the conscious thought of
the masters who conceived them, the buildings of Egypt give utterance
also to the toil and suffering of the thousands of slaves and captives
which hewed the stones out of the heart of the rock, dragged them long
distances and placed them one upon another, so that these buildings
oppress while they inspire, for there is in them no freedom, no
spontaneity, no individuality, but everywhere the felt presence of an
iron conventionality, of a stern immutable law.
In Egyptian architecture is symbolized the condition of the human soul
awakened from its long sleep in nature, and become conscious at once
of its divine source and of the leaden burden of