spengler in his treatise saw through historical philosophy the perception of each people's culture embedded in its archaic forms.
the ancient egyptian, the chinese, the greek, the hindu, the gothic, the renaissance...saw what it was for a time that was then clearly expressed in form. in each time, they either turned inward and/or outward. each saw what was for a time a clarity before the world changed/evolved ...not as a model of the world itself but of that specific cultures' world...
the chinese temple following the principles of the tao of lao tzu(travelling through the world unrestricted by stone-walls) was not a free-standing building in itself but one that included hills, trees, streams, the wind and nature itself... the complex tones of baroque music, the emotional depth in the paintings of the realist rembrandt, the elliptical orbits of the planets reflected in the gothic cathedral (the magical forces evidently bringing light outside into its cool interiors through its stained glass windows)...the discovery of the calculus... greek temple design, greek vase painting, greek sculpture( the emergence of his bodily self as the differentiation of the individual from society...standing alone, free, and apart)...these are just some of the more influential forces within each period.
the renaissance architect, alberti, upon mastering the art of perspective, exclaimed. "now, i can see the world as god sees it"...for example...neither do we see the disc on the back of four elephants atop a giant tortoise swimming in an endless sea...which was how the ancient hindu saw the world...a manifestation in form of that culture's world... the order of their existence... the underlying principles...the way of life and death for that matter. a virtual view, an intangible presence in our imaginations...manifesting brilliance of the human race.
