Moreover, the support is not adapted to the burden when it is only sufficient to bear it, but when it can do this so conveniently and amply that at the first glance we are quite at ease about it. Yet this superfluity of support must not exceed a certain degree; for otherwise we will perceive support without burden, which is opposed to the æsthetic end. As a rule for determining that degree the ancients devised the line of equilibrium, which is got by carrying out the diminution of the thickness of the column as it ascends till it runs out into an acute angle, whereby the column becomes a cone; now every cross section will leave the lower part so strong that it is sufficient to support the upper part cut off. Commonly, however, one builds with twentyfold strength, _i.e._, one lays upon every support only 1/20th of the maximum it could bear. A glaring example of burden without support is presented to the eye by the balconies at the corners of many houses built in the elegant style of the present day. We do not see what supports them; they seem to hang suspended, and disturb the mind. That in Italy even the simplest and most unornamented buildings make an æsthetic impression, while in Germany this is not the case, depends principally upon the fact that in Italy the roofs are very flat. A high roof is neither support nor burden, for its two halves mutually support each other, but the whole has no weight corresponding to its extension. Therefore it presents to the eye an extended mass which is entirely foreign to the æsthetic end, serves merely a useful end, consequently disturbs the former, of which the theme is always only support and burden.