or additional smaller forms, and so add to it
(the leaves), completing the design. (See preceding page.)

[Linear Logic]

On the same principle one may design upon various other plans. The exact
choice of the distribution of the counterbalancing masses must always be
a matter of personal feeling, judgment, and taste, controlled by the
perception of certain logical necessities: as it seems to me that
designing is a species of linear reasoning,* and might almost be
worked in its elementary stages on the principle of the syllogism,
consisting of two propositions and a conclusion. A spiral curve is a
harmonious line, says the designer: repeat it, reversed, and you
prolong the harmony; repeat it again, with variations, and you complete
the harmony. Or, harmonious effect is produced by recurring form and
line. Here is a circular form; here is a meandering line: combine and
repeat them, and you get a logical and harmonious border motive.

[*] I recall here a saying of Sir E. Burne-Jones, that "a bad
line can only be answered by a good line."

[Illustration (f031): Border Units and Border Motive.]

[Recurring Line and Form]

The everlastingly recurring egg and dart moulding and the volute are
instances of the harmonious effect of very simple arrangements of
recurring line and form. We also get illustrated in these another linear
quality in design--that up-and-down movement which gives a pleasant
rhythm to the simplest border, and is of especial consequence in all
repeating border and frieze designs. The borders of early, ancient, and
classical art might be said to be little besides rhythmical and logical
arrangements of line. The same rhythmical principle is found in the
designs of the classical frieze in all its varieties, culminating in the
rhythmic movement of the great Pan-Athenaic procession in that
master-frieze of the Parthenon, which, though full of infinite variety
and delicate sculptured detail, is yet controlled by a strictly
ornamental motive, and constructed upon the rhythmic recurrence of pure
line.

[Illustration (f032): Recurring Line and Form in Border Motives.]

[The Principle of Radiation]

Another great linear principle in design is what is known as the
_radiating_ principle, which gives vitality and vigour alike to both
arrangements of li