In so far as the general character of these buildings is concerned, in which religious architecture is that which is most prominent, we discovered already in our introduction to this part of our inquiry that in this type both those of _independent_ and _serviceable_ architecture are _united._ This unity, however, does not in any way consist in a fusion of the architectural forms of the Oriental and the Greek, but we must look for it in the fact that, on the one hand, the house or _dwelling-enclosure_ furnishes yet more the fundamental type than in the Greek temple construction, and, on the other, mere _serviceableness_ and purpose is to that extent _eliminated_, and the house is emphasized apart from it in its _free independence._ No doubt these houses of God and other buildings of this type appear to the fullest extent as constructed for definite objects, as already stated, but their true character is precisely this, that it reaches over and beyond the determinate aim and presents itself in a form of self-seclusion and positive local independence. The creation stands up in its place independent, secure, and eternal. For this reason the character of the entirety is no longer to be deduced from any purely scientific or theoretical relation. Within the interior the box-like envelope of our Protestant churches falls away which are built simply that they may be filled with men and women, and do not possess church pews as stalls; in their exterior, the building soars in its roofing and pinnacles freely upwards, so that the relation of purpose, however much it be also present, tends again to disappear, leaving the impression of the whole that of a self-subsistent existence. Such a building is entirely filled up by nothing expressly; everything is absorbed in the grandeur of the whole: it possesses and declares a definite object, but in its grandiose proportions and sublime repose it is essentially and with an infinite significance exalted[104] above all mere intentional serviceableness. This exaltation over finitude and simple security is that which constitutes the _unique_ characteristic aspect of it. From another point of view it is precisely in this type that architecture finds the greatest opportunity for _particularisation_, diversion of effect and variety, without permitting, however, the whole to fall into mere details and accidental particulars. The imposing character of the art we are considering restores, on the contrary, this aspect of division and dismemberment in the original impression of simplicity. It is the substantive being of the whole which is set in division and dismemberment in an infinite multiplicity throughout the entire complexus of individual and varied distinctions; but this unbounded complexity is subdivided in a simple way, is articulated according to rule, broken into parts symmetrically by the same substance, which is the motive and constitutive principle