and it is this idea of a common form that makes the proportion of parts at all regarded, and not the operation of any natural cause:  indeed a little consideration will make it appear, that it is not measure, but manner, that creates all the beauty which belongs to shape.  What light do we borrow from these boasted proportions, when we study ornamental design?  It seems amazing to me, that artists, if they were as well convinced as they pretend to be, that proportion is a principal cause of beauty, have not by them at all times accurate measurements of all sorts of beautiful animals to help them to proper proportions, when they would contrive anything elegant; especially as they frequently assert that it is from an observation of the beautiful in nature they direct their practice.  I know that it has been said long since, and echoed backward and forward from one writer to another a thousand times, that the proportions of building have been taken from those of the human body.  To make this forced analogy complete, they represent a man with his arms raised and extended at full length, and then describe a sort of square, as it is formed by passing lines along the extremities of this strange figure.  But it appears very clearly to me that the human figure never supplied the architect with any of his ideas.  For, in the first place, men are very rarely seen in this strained posture; it is not natural to them; neither is it at all becoming.  Secondly, the view of the human figure so disposed, does not naturally suggest the idea of a square, but rather of a cross; as that large space be tween the arms and the ground must be filled with something before it can make anybody think of a square.  Thirdly, several buildings are by no means of the form of that particular square, which are notwithstanding planned by the best architects, and produce an effect altogether as good, and perhaps a better.  And certainly nothing could he more unaccountably whimsical, than for an architect to model his performance by the human figure, since no two things can have less resemblance or analogy, than a man, and a house or temple:  do we need to observe that their purposes are entirely different?  What I am apt to suspect is this:  that these analogies were devised to give a credit to the works of art, by showing a conformity between them and the noblest works in nature; not that the latter served at all to supply hints for the perfection of the former.  And I am the more fully convinced, that the patrons of proportion have transferred their artificial ideas to nature, and not borrowed from thence the proportions they use in works of art; because in any discussion of this subject they always quit as soon as possible the open field of natural beauties, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and fortify themselves within the artificial lines and angles of architecture.  For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views, and their works, the measure of excellence in everything whatsoever.