In the middle ages 191

ture, where everything is reasoned and rational.

Has it not been said with justice that Gothic archi-

tecture is an apphcation of logic in poems in stone,

that it speaks as forcibly and clearly to the mind as

to the eye? It is nothing more than the most logi-

cal application of the laws of gravitation. The

pointed arch windows and the double arched vaults

express their function admirably, as do also the sup-

ports and the buttresses. Everywhere we find

beauty rationalized; no superfluous ornaments,

nothing of that fantastic decoration which spoiled

the Gothic idea in the fifteenth century. In those

lines of clearness and purity which we see in the

naves of the cathedral of Rheims, Paris, Amiens,

and Chartres all is sober and reasonable. The walls

have let themselves be cleft in order to admit the

light, — the light filled first, however, with those

dreams imparted by the glass; and the felt need of

light issued finally in creating churches that are

transparent, as it were, where all is subordinated to

the idea of illumination.

Nor is it otherwise with the sculpture of the thir-

teenth century, the form of which is vivified by clear

and severe concepts. "The iconography of the

thirteenth century," writes M. Male, "aims to speak

to the intelligence and not to the feelings. It is

doctrinal and theological, that is to say, logical and

rational; but there is nothing pathetic or tender

about it. The great religious compositions speak

to the mind, and not to the heart. Consider, for

192 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

instance, how the artists of the thirteenth century

conceive the Nativity: Mary rechnes on a couch

with head averted; the Child is not in a crib, but

upon an altar; a lamp is suspended over His head

between parted curtains."" Every point directs

the mind to dogma and to doctrine. Human emo-

tion is silent before such a conception, and the same

is true when the tranquil Virgin bears in her arms,

or upon her knees, the Infant Saviour; or when

she assists, in her grief, but without weakness, at

the crucifixion of her Son. It is only after the

fourteenth century that art becomes tender, that

the Virgin smiles and weeps, and "the symboho

apple which the serious Virgin of the thirteenth

holds in her hand to remind us that she is the sec-

ond Eve, becomes a plaything to prevent the child

Jesus from crying."^^

Society is also intellectualized, in its entirety, in

the sense that the whole age craves for order. Of

course the thirteenth century is filled with quarrels

and revolts, and hostilities break out everywhere;

this signifies only that it was no more possible to

realize fully a social ideal in that age than in any

other. But the ideal existed none the less and it

was efficacious. The relations of vassals and suze-

rains and of the subjects and kings, the participa-

tion of the feudal classes in the prerogatives of gov-

ernment, the establishment of national parliaments,

14 Male, L'art religieux du 13'e sUcle en France, 1910, p. 221.

15 Ibid., p. 239.

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