The next question to consider is the _ends_ necessary for a repeated
series. Do they end with a heavier or with a lighter unit than the rest
of the series, or with a unit of the same size? It will be remembered
in the experiments touching this point that the subjects, without
exception, preferred the series ending with heavier units. We should
then expect, in examples of repeated groups of posts, pillars, etc.,
alternating with wider or more prominent ones of the same kinds, that
the series would end with the heavier or more prominent one. Examples
of railings or balustrades alternating with heavier supports are so
common, and the supports come so invariably on the end, that repeated
examples seem almost unnecessary. But another question arose in
connection with this: Does not the apperception of a group of lines
equidistant from each other consist in going back and forth over them
from edge to edge, with no rest on one point more than on another;
while in a group of lines arranged at equal distances each side of the
centre but not from each other, to emphasize bilateral symmetry, does
not the attention rest on the centre, and move from the centre of one
group to the next?
Moreover, we found that a wider space or embankment of some sort was
necessary, to finish off a series of groups in which the separate lines
were equidistant from each other, than to finish the groups whose lines
were symmetrically arranged. This suggests that the activity which
goes back and forth in the former case, being less coördinated and
not bound to a middle point, needs more at the end to stop it than is
needed in the latter case, when the attention is more upon the centre
of each figure. It would seem, then, that the former arrangement would
be appropriate for railings and balustrades, where the effect is of
continuity either running wholly around the structure and into itself
again or where a continuity of parts is desired and a connected series.
The other arrangement divides the series into discrete parts. If the
attention is stopped at every central point, the effect is less of
continuity and more of separate unities bound together externally by
their equal distances. We should, then, expect such series of units
much less in continuous balustrades, but if they occurred at all, that
they would be in connection with separate unities that did not want
continuity or place in a series emphasized at the expense of their
individuality. All this we might expect from the experiments alone,
although whether such a refinement would have got into architecture
seems questionable. Moreover, the question whether a symmetrical
group of units needs a less heavy end to finish it than a group of
the equidistant type is even more difficult to illustrate. Although
the two types may be given under some conditions in experiments, in
actual architecture they never appear so, for the two types never
appear in the same buildings allowing them to be compared. Besides, few
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