Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 35:140 (Oct 1878)
Article: Symmetry And Rhythm
Author: Thomas Hill

BSac 35:140 (Oct 1878) p. 708

Symmetry And Rhythm

Thomas Hill

It is a fault, or else an excellence, of human language that no word long remains perfectly unambiguous. We at first coin a word to express an idea, and presently either expand its meaning to cover kindred ideas, or contract it, and restrict it to a part of its original signification. Even in the mathematics, where, if anywhere, we should find words absolutely unambiguous, every symbol, every term, conveys more than one meaning, according to the connection of thought. The words “symmetry” and “rhythm” are, of course, no exception to this general law. Symmetry primarily, according to its etymological derivation, refers simply to equality of measure. But no man can consider seriously his own conception of symmetry, without discovering that he usually perceives in an object which he calls symmetrical something deeper and of more importance than a mere equality of dimensions. Hence we come to recognize two principal significations in the word. The first is a regularity of form which can be determined by compass and rule, consisting merely in the equidistance of points from some point, line, or plane of reference. The second meaning demands, in addition to this equidistance, — nay, even sometimes finds, in spite of failure to conform to the standard of rule and compass, — a higher quality, akin to beauty. This second meaning of symmetry contains an implicit recognition of geometric law. In like manner, rhythm refers primarily to a mere equal division of similarly recurring divisions of time; but in a higher sense asks that this regularly recurring division of time should be such as will produce agreeable

BSac 35:140 (Oct 1878) p. 709

sensations in him who perceives it. Before we can deal intelligently with our subject, we must therefore define clearly our ideas in relation to the laws of space and time. Symmetry does not refer, in its best sense, simply to material things, but to the space which they occupy. The Grecian architects discovered that a perfect conformity of material things to symmetrical forms did not suggest those symmetrical forms to the beholder so distinctly as they were suggested when the marble was made to deviate slightly, according to perspective laws, from the form which it was intended should be embodied in imagination by the beholder. The attempts of civilized governments to secure uniform weights and measures, in conformity to a single standard, show us how difficult, how impossible, to make a material substance exactly in conformity with an ideal measure. The objects which we call symmetrical we call so only because they suggest to our imagination symmetrical forms. Yet those forms exist not only in our imaginations, but in space also, and, out of our imagination and thought, in space only. And by spac...