This progressive growth was but the practical realisation of three great aims towards which the Romanesque architects were ever striving--the perfecting of their arcuated and vaulted construction, the increase of the altitude of their proportions, and the general adding of refinement and elegance to their details. Thus, if you take the internal bay of a Norman cathedral, and simply set yourself the task of increasing its height in a given proportion, the result will be a Gothic bay, for the arches cannot participate in the increased elevation without becoming pointed. If the details are further refined, it becomes an ordinary transitional design; and if the process is carried on a little farther, it becomes a perfected Early Pointed work--the distinction between transition and perfected Early Pointed being merely the carrying on of the process by which the former was generated out of Romanesque. This fact, which all who look closely into it must see, was what led a talented writer to say that Early Pointed was only Romanesque improved. He meant this as an argument against it as compared with the still succeeding styles; but I confess, for my own part, while feeling strongly the truth of the observation, and highly appreciating the importance of some of the subsequent developments, I do not the less admire the glorious productions of the Early style from seeing in them the evidences of the vigorous stock from which they have sprung.[36] It will be seen, by enumerating the leading characteristics of Pointed architecture, that the great majority of them were already perfected, or, at least, brought to that reasonable and consistent state of development which stops short of excess and exaggeration, at the commencement of the thirteenth century.