Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/162

134 examined only the skeleton, and the other only the respiratory system; and who, therefore, supposed—the first, that the animal had been made only to leap, and the other only to sing. I don't mean that either of the writers I name is absolutely thus narrow in his own views, but that, so far as inconsistency appears to exist between them, it is of that partial kind only.

157. And for the understanding of our Pisan traceries we must introduce a third element of similarly distinctive nature. We must, to press our simile a little farther, examine the growth of the animal as if it had been made neither to leap, nor to sing, but only to think. We must observe the transitional states of its nerve power; that is to say, in our window tracery we must consider not merely how its ribs are built, (or how it stands,) nor merely how its openings are shaped, or how it breathes; but also what its openings are made to light, or its shafts to receive, of picture or image. As the limbs of the building, it may be much; as the lungs of the building, more. As the eyes of the building, what?