men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be
imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be
perfect, in its own bad way.[58]

Sec. XXV. The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort
essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal
body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that
lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part
nascent. The foxglove blossom,--a third part bud, a third part past, a
third part in full bloom,--is a type of the life of this world. And in all
things that live there are certain, irregularities and deficiencies which
are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is
exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes,
no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change;
and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion,
to paralyse vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more
beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that
the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment,
Mercy.

Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any
other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us
be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern
clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first
cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of
perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for
greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.

Thus far then of the Rudeness or Savageness, which is the first mental
element of Gothic architecture. It is an element in many other healthy
architectures also, as in Byzantine and Romanesque; but true Gothic
cannot exist without it.

Sec. XXVI. The second mental element above named was CHANGEFULNESS, or
Variety.

I have already enforced the allowing independent operation to the
inferior workman, simply as a duty _to him_, and as ennobling the
architecture by rendering it more Christian. We have now to consider
what reward we obtain for the performance of this duty, namely, the
perpetual variety of every feature of the building.

Wherever the workman is utterly enslaved, the parts of the building must
of course be absolutely like each other; for the perfection of his
execution can only b