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THE PARTHENON
Certain writers have declared that the Doric column was inspired by a tree springing from the earth, without base, etc., a proof that every noble form of art derives from nature. It is most false, since the tree with straight trunk is unknown in Greece, where only stunted pines and twisted olives grow. The Greeks created a plastic system directly and forcibly affecting our senses: columns and their flutings, a complex entablature rich in meaning; steps which set off and link on to the horizon. They employed the most delicate distortions, applying to their contours an impeccable adjustment to the laws of optics.
This sounding-board which vibrates in us is our criterion of harmony. This is indeed the axis on which man is organized in perfect accord with nature and probably with the universe, this axis of organization which must indeed be that on which all phenomena and all objects of nature are based; this axis leads us to assume a unity of conduct in the universe and to
