Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/15

PREFACE. XI have succeeded in popularising the subject by rendering its principles generally intelligible, and can thus give an impulse to its study, and assist in establishing Indian architecture on a stable basis, so that it may take its true position among the other great styles which have ennobled the arts of mankind. The publication of this volume completes the history of the 'Architecture in all countries, from the earliest times to the present day, in four volumes,' and there it must at present rest. As originally projected, it was intended to have added a fifth volume on ' Rude Stone Monuments/ which is still wanted to make the series quite complete ; but, as explained in the preface to my work bearing that title, the subject was not, when it was written, ripe for a historical treatment, and the materials collected were consequently used in an argumentative essay. Since that work was published, in 1872, no serious examination of its arguments has been undertaken by any competent authority, while every new fact that has come to light especially in India has served to confirm me more and more in the correctness of the principles I then tried to establish. 1 Unless, however, the matter is taken up seriously, and re-examined by those who, from their position, have the ear of the public in these matters, no such progress will be made as would justify the publication of a second work on the same subject. I consequently see no chance of my ever having an opportunity of taking up the subject again, so as to be able to describe its objects in a more consecutive or more exhaustive manner than was done in the work just alluded to. 1 A distinguished German professor, Herr Kinkel of Zurich, in his ' Mosaik zur Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 1876,' has lately adopted my views with regard to the age of Stonehenge without any reservation, though arriving at that conclusion by a very different chain of reasoning from that I was led to adopt.