In accordance with the deduction given in the text of the pure æsthetics of architecture from the lowest grades of the objectification of the will or of nature, the Ideas of which it seeks to bring to distinct perception, its one constant theme is _support and burden_, and its fundamental law is that no burden shall be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable burden; consequently that the relation of these two shall be exactly the fitting one. The purest example of the carrying out of this theme is the column and entablature. Therefore the order or columnar arrangement has become, as it were, the thorough bass of the whole of architecture. In column and entablature the support and the burden are _completely separated_; whereby the reciprocal action of the two and their relation to each other becomes apparent. For certainly even every plain wall contains support and burden; but here the two are still fused together. All is here support and all is burden; hence there is no æsthetic effect. This first appears through the separation, and takes place in proportion to its degree. For between the row of columns and the plain wall there are many intermediate degrees. Even in the mere breaking up of the wall of a house by windows and doors one seeks at least to indicate that separation by flat projecting pilasters (_antæ_) with capitals, which are inserted under the mouldings, nay, in case of need, are represented by mere painting, in order to indicate in some way the entablature and an order. Real pillars, and also consoles and supports of various kinds, realise more that pure separation of support and burden which is striven after throughout by architecture. In this respect, next to the column with the entablature, but as a special construction not imitating it, stands the vault with the pillar. The latter certainly is far from attaining to the æsthetic effect of the former, because here the support and the burden are not _purely separated_, but are fused, passing over into each other. In the vault itself every stone is at once burden and support, and even the pillars, especially in groined vaulting, are, at least apparently, held in position by the pressure of opposite arches; and also just on account of this lateral pressure not only vaults but even mere arches ought not to rest upon columns, but require the massive four‐ cornered pillars. In the row of columns alone is the separation complete, for here the entablature appears as pure burden, the column as pure support. Accordingly the relation of the colonnade to the plain wall may be compared to that which would exist between a scale ascending in regular intervals and a tone ascending little by little from the same depth to the same height without gradation, which would produce a mere howl. For in the one as in the other the material is the same, and the important difference proceeds entirely from the _pure separation_.