The fact that this enunciation depended no longer on the architect, but on a second ‘documenter’ just added to the fear: In fact, if we sum up what we have just roughly pointed out disregarding a thousand details of proof and also exceptions to the rule it comes briefly to this: that down to the fifteenth century, architecture was the chief recorder of the human race; that during that space no single thought that went beyond the absolutely fundamental, but was embodied in some edifice; that every popular idea, like every religious law, has had its monuments; finally, that the human race has never conceived an important thought that it has not written down in stone.
De hecho, si sumamos lo que hemos señalado de manera aproximada sin importar los miles de detalles de prueba y también las excepciones a la regla se trata brevemente de esto: que hasta el siglo XV, la arquitectura era el principal registro de la raza humana; que durante ese espacio no hay un solo pensamiento que fuera más allá de lo absolutamente fundamental, sino que fue encarnado en algún edificio; que toda idea popular, como toda ley religiosa, tiene sus monumentos; finalmente, la raza humana nunca concibió un pensamiento importante que no haya sido escrito en piedra.