In the second place, it is an undoubted fact, that we are at a transitional period of our art, that we are dissatisfied with the present and aiming at an altered future, and that some of us are following up that aim on the basis of a revival of the style of which I have been treating, while there is a _vis inertiæ_ in art which is not easily overcome, but yields reluctantly to change; how important, then, is it to us to know that the style we are reviving was itself based, as all good architecture must be, on the firm rock of common sense, and how essential to our success that we should place our revival on the same basis! Shall we, then, secure this object by doing only _what_ our forefathers did? By no means; rather, as I have urged in a former lecture, let us do _as_ they did: that is, _act upon reason_. They thoroughly suited all their works to their varied objects. Let us do the same, how much soever more varied our requirements may be. They made their houses comfortable to the extent of their habits; let us make ours so to the greatly increased extent of our own habits. They welcomed every invention as it arose: let us do the same by the inventions of our own prolific age. They utilised every material which presented itself to them: let us do so by all the materials which modern science or ingenuity has placed at our command; only let us do all this truthfully and consistently with reason; for example, if we meet with an invention suited to the surface decoration of rooms but devoid of constructive strength, let us use it _as_ a surface decoration, and not, as is too commonly done, make troughs and pipes of it, and pass them off for beams and columns! If we admire a vaulted construction, by all means let us use it, but do not let us emulate the vaulting of Diocletian’s Baths and Westminster Abbey or the domes of the Pantheon or St. Sophia in lath and plaster! If we want plaster casts of ancient monuments, let us place them in our museums, but, for goodness sake, let our buildings themselves be real!