o Law 3 says that capitals of great excess must have steep slopes; but
it does not say that capitals of small excess may not have steep slopes
also, if we choose. And lastly, Law 4 asserts the necessity of the thick
abacus for the shallow bell; but the steep bell may have a thick abacus
also.

Sec. XIX. It will be found, however, that in practice some confession of
these laws will always be useful, and especially of the two first. The
eye always requires, on a slender shaft, a more spreading capital than
it does on a massy one, and a bolder mass of capital on a small scale
than on a large. And, in the application of the first rule, it is to be
noted that a shaft becomes slender either by diminution of diameter or
increase of height; that either mode of change presupposes the weight
above it diminished, and requires an expansion of abacus. I know no mode
of spoiling a noble building more frequent in actual practice than the
imposition of flat and slightly expanded capitals on tall shafts.

Sec. XX. The reader must observe, also, that, in the demonstration of
the four laws, I always assumed the weight above to be given. By the
alteration of this weight, therefore, the architect has it in his power
to relieve, and therefore alter, the forms of his capitals. By its
various distribution on their centres or edges, the slope of their bells
and thickness of abaci will be affected also; so that he has countless
expedients at his command for the various treatment of his design. He
can divide his weights among more shafts; he can throw them in different
places and different directions on the abaci; he can alter slope of
bells or diameter of shafts; he can use spurred or plain bells, thin or
thick abaci; and all these changes admitting of infinity in their
degrees, and infinity a thousand times told in their relations: and all
this without reference to decoration, merely with the five forms of
block capital!

Sec. XXI. In the harmony of these arrangements, in their fitness, unity,
and accuracy, lies the true proportion of every building,--proportion
utterly endless in its infinities of change, with unchanged beauty. And
yet this connexion of the frame of their building into one harmony has,
I believe, never been so much as dreamed of by architects. It has been
instinctively done in some degree by many, empirically in some degree by
many more; thoughtfully and thoroughly, I believe, by none.

Sec. XXII. We have hitherto considere