Note 372 — Chapter III · (continued 3)

It must be admitted that this summary treatment of gardens is not very satisfactory. No doubt the best authorities concur in the view that the formal garden is more artistic than the landscape, but hardly on the main ground given here. Landscape gardening such as we find it in our great English country houses has a real justification of its own. And with regard to the reason given that a garden should be entirely subordinate to the human object do we not strike here upon a weakness which is to a certain extent apparent also in Hegel's theory of the artistic purpose of architecture. I think it must be admitted that though it is true the object of both these arts is not entirely for their own beauty, and in certain cases, not even primarily so, as in the case of a senate-house or ordinary garden, yet where the artistic purpose is manifested throughout with great deliberation they may be essentially an independent work of art; take the case,.of a cathedral, for example, or a really beautiful and homogeneous formal garden.