Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

226 TIIE PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS' NESTS.
}Man ranges over the whole earth, and exists under
the most varied conditions, leading necessarily to
equally varied habits. Hie migrates —he makes wars
and conquests-one race mingles with another-different custoims are brought into contact —the habits
of a migrating or conquering race are modified by
the different circumstances of a new country. The
civilized race which conquered Egypt must have
developed its mode of building in a forest country
where timber was abundant, for it is not probable,
that the idea of cylindrical columns originated in a
country destitute of trees. The pyramids might have
been built by an indigenous race, but not the temples
of El Uksor and Karnak. In Grecian architecture,
almost every characteristic feature can be traced to
an origin in wooden buildings. T1e columns, the
architrave, the frieze, the fillets, the cantelevers, the
form of the roof, all point to an origin in some southern
forest-clad country, and strikingly corroborate the
view derived from philology, that Greece was colonised from nr-th-western India. But to erect columns
and sp5an them with huge blocks of stone, or marble,
is not an act of reason, but one of pure unreasoning
ji-itation. The arch is the only true and reasonable
-m:ode of cover1ing over wide spaces with stone, and
therefore, Grecian architecture, however exquisitely
beaautif;ul, is false in principle, and is by no means a
good example of the application of reason to the art
of building. And what do most of us do at the present day but imitate the buildings of those that have
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