This is the conclusion of Hirt, following in this respect Vitruvius, and his conclusion has been much disputed. I will in a few words offer my own view on the matter in dispute, In the ordinary course of such reflections we seek to discover the abstract and simple law for a concrete result assumed as already present. It is in this way that Hirt looks for the basic model of Greek buildings, in like manner the design[82], the anatomical framework, and finds it, so far as form and the material connected with it is concerned, in the dwelling and building of wood. No doubt a house as such is built mainly as a dwelling, a protection against storm, rain, weather, animals, and human beings, and requires an enclosure that is complete, in order that a family or a larger community of men may collect in independent seclusion and may look after their necessities and pursue their avocations in such seclusion. The house is a structure throughout with a definite purpose, a creation of mankind for human objects. For this reason we find him occupied upon it in many ways and with many objects, and the structure is articulated in an aggregate pile of all kinds of mechanical ways of mutual interlacement and imposition[83] in order to hold in position and secure, according to the laws of gravity, what men are compelled to look after, that is, the making stable what is erected[84], the closing it in, the support of what is superimposed, and not merely in the way of support, but, where the structure rests horizontally, the preservation of it in such a position, and, further, the uniting of all that clashes together at nooks and corners and so on. Now it is quite true that the house makes it necessary that the enclosure should be complete; and for this walls are most serviceable and safest; and from this point of view the building of stone appears most to answer the purpose. We may, however, with equal ease construct our fence with posts standing in juxtaposition, upon which then beams will rest, which at the same time both bind together and secure the perpendicular posts. Finally we come to the cover of all and roofing. In the temple house, moreover, the fact of enclosure is not the main fact of importance, but the feature of support and being supported. For this mechanical result the wooden structure is obviously the nearest to hand and the most natural. For the post, as that which supports, which at the same time requires a means of conjunction, and suffers the same to weigh on it in the shape of the cross-beam, constitutes here all that goes to the root of the matter. This essential division of parts and connection as well as the association of these aspects for a definite purpose belongs to the very nature of a wooden structure, which has its necessary material directly supplied it by the tree. In the tree we find already, without working upon it to any considerable or laborious extent, both post and beam, in so far as, that is, the