Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Sacred Architecture, Its Rise, Progress, and Present State: Embracing the Babylonian, Indian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Temples, the Byzantine, Saxon Lombard, Norman, and Italian Churches; With an Analytical Inquiry Into the Origin, Progress, and Perfection of the Gothic Churches in England
If we search into the early history of Sacred Architecture, we find not only the inspired writers but the heathen historians, giving us accounts of sacred structures; and Oriental travellers all afford materials for this purpose, derived either from authentic sources, traditionary accounts, or actual observation of the existing objects themselves. Now, in this research, it would be vain to inquire who built the first temples, seeing architecture evidently had its origin in the Antediluvian world. It appears, however, that temples are not of so remote a date. And here it will be necessary to remark, that although the sons of the patriarch Noah, on their dispersion at the commencement of the present world, might have hastily built rustic habitations to protect themselves from the inclemency of the weather, while others repaired to those caverns abounding in Asia, they must at this time have been previously well acquainted with constructive, if not decorative architecture, the knowledge of which they brought with them when they entered the Ark, for we find, soon after their settlement, they built cities, and erected temples to the Divinity. And further, it will be obvious to all who have studied the early history of the human race in connection with its antiquities, and considered the analogies offered by those rude and simple untutored nations of the world, who see God in clouds, and hear him in the wind, particularly those who once occupied the western sides of the Americas on the discovery of those countries, that the science of architectural designs was, here the result of their devotional tendencies, though the art of building at first might have originated in their personal wants. And again, with reference to Sacred Architecture in Egypt and in India, in Mexico and Peru, in Greece and in Rome, in Gaul and in Britain, structures connected with the worship of the Deity existed, and still exist, of the earliest dates, beyond the range of positive chrono logical information - some evincing a greater, and others a less advance in taste and refinement, but all retaining some analogy -upon the same point, and tending to' what may be called archi tectural arrangement.
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