is the opinion of Vitruvius, and is supported by Hirt in a similar reference, or rather from those of stone. This contrast of original material is no doubt of importance, for it does not merely concern its external quality as one might at first sight suppose, but rather the architectonic character of fundamental forms; for instance, the kind of decoration united with it is essentially bound up with this external material. We may, however, entirely set aside the distinction as a purely subordinate aspect of the matter rather referable to what is accidental and empirical, and devote our attention to a point of more importance.
In other words, in dealing with houses, temples, and other buildings we are confronted with the essential condition, to which we attribute the fact that buildings of this kind are merely _means_ which presuppose an external end. Hut and house of God alike presuppose those who dwell in them, and for whom they have been erected, men and the images of gods. Man is also prompted by a desire to leap and sing; he requires the mediacy of human speech; but speech, leaping, shouting, and singing are not as yet poetry, the dance and music. And when within the architectonic adaptation of means to ends in order to satisfy specific needs, in part referable to daily life and in part to the religious cultus or the state, the impulse in the direction of artistic form and beauty asserts itself, we find at the same time a _division_ apparent in the kind of building above mentioned. On the one hand we have man, thinking man, or the image of the god as the essential _object_, for which, from the other point of view, architecture merely supplies the _means_ of environment and covering. With such a divided point of view we are unable to constitute our beginning, which is in its nature the _immediate_, and simple, not a relativity or essential relation of this sort; rather we must look for a point of departure, where a distinction of this kind does not yet arise.
In this respect we have already at an earlier stage stated that the art of building corresponds to the _symbolic_ type of art, and in a unique degree gives realization to the principle of the same as particular art because architecture generally is adapted to suggest the significances implanted in it purely in the external framework of the environment.
If the distinction, then, above referred to between the object of the external cover independently presented in the living man, or the temple's image, and the building regarded as the fulfilment of such an object, is to be absent from our earliest stage, we shall have to look about us for buildings which precisely, as works of sculpture, do stand up in _independent_ self-subsistence, which in short carry their significance in _themselves_ rather than in some _other_ object or necessity. This is a point of the highest importance, which I have never found raised hitherto, although it goes to the root of the matter, and alone is capable of disclosing the manifold nature of external forms, and of supplying a thread to conduct us through the maze of architectonic configuration. A self-subsistent art of building of this kind will also to a similar degree differ from sculpture on this ground, namely, that it, as architecture, does not create images, whose significance is that which is essentially spiritual and personal, and which itself intrinsically possesses the principle of an appropriated embodiment throughout adequate to its ideal import, but builds up works which, in their exterior form, can merely give an impress of the significance in a symbolic way. And for this reason this type of architecture, both in respect to its content and, its presentation, is really of a _symbolic type._ All that we have said with reference to the principle of this stage of art applies equally to its mode of _presentation._ Here, too, we find that the mere distinction between buildings of wood and stone is not sufficient, in so far as the same points to a means of limiting and enclosing a defined space for a specific religious or other human purposes, as is the case with dwellings, palaces, and temples. Such a space, may be obtained either by hollowing out essentially solid and stable masses, or conversely, by preparing walls and roofs to enclose it. We can make our beginning of the art of building with neither of these alternatives, which we should consequently define as an inorganic form of sculpture; such a type no doubt piles up independently stable images, but while doing so does not in any way make the end of free beauty and the manifestation of Spirit in the bodily form commensurate with the end it pursues, but in general terms sets up a purely symbolic form, which purports in itself to indicate and express a particular idea.
Architecture is, however, unable to remain standing at such a point of departure. Its function indeed consists just in this, namely, to build up external Nature as an environment which emanates from Spirit itself through the gates of art under the forms of beauty, and to build it for the independently present life of mind, that is mankind, or for the images of the gods that are set up and clothed by man in objective form, and to build up the same as that which no longer carries its significance in itself, but discovers the same in another, that is man, and his necessities and objects of family and State-life, culture and so forth, and by so doing surrenders the self-subsistency of such buildings.
Regarded under this aspect we may assume the _advance_ of architecture to consist in this, that it suffers the above indicated distinction between end and means to appear in separation, and constructs for man, or the individual human form of gods, which is the work of sculpture, an architectural dwelling, palace, or temple analogous to the significance of the same.
And, thirdly, the _termination_[32] unites both phases in the process, and appears within this aspect of division as at the same time self-subsistent. These points of view present to us, as the classification of the entire art of building, the following heads of division, which essentially comprehend the notional distinctions of the matter in question no less than the historical development of the same.
_First_, we have the genuine _symbolic_ or _self-subsistent_ type of architecture.
_Secondly_, there is the _classical_ type, which gives independent form to spiritual individuality, divesting on the other hand the art of building of its self-subsistency, and degrading it in the intent to set up an inorganic environment under the forms of art, for the spiritual significances which are now on their part independently realized.
_Thirdly_, _romantic_ architecture, in other words the so-called Moorish, Gothic, and German, in which, it is true, houses, churches, and palaces are also merely the dwellings and places in which civic and religious needs and activities are concentrated; which, however, conversely are also shaped and raised without let or hindrance for the express object of emphasizing their self-subsistency.
Although on the grounds already advanced architecture in respect to its fundamental character remains of a symbolic type, yet the artistic types known as the truly symbolic, classical, and romantic constitute the closest means of defining it, and are here of greater importance than in the other arts. For in sculpture the classical, and in music and painting the romantic, penetrates so profoundly to the entire root-basis of these arts respectively, that for the elaboration of the type of the other arts[33], to a more or less degree, but little room is left for other aspects. And, finally, in poetry, though it is the fact that it gives the most complete impress in its art-products of the entire series of art-types, we shall find it necessary to make our classification not by means of the distinction between symbolic, classic, and romantic poetry, but according to the specific differentiation applicable to poetry as a particular art in epic, lyrical, and dramatic poetry. Architecture is, on the other hand, art in its immediate relation to the external medium, so that in this case the essential differences consist in this, whether this external matter receives its significance intrinsically, or is treated as a means for an object other than it, or finally asserts itself in this subservience as at the same time independent. The first case is identical with the symbolic type simply, the second with the classical, the real significance attaining here an independent presentation, and in doing this the symbolic is attached as an environment wholly external to it, a type which is exemplified in the principle of classical art. The union of these two types is coincident with the romantic, in so far, that is, as romantic art makes use of the exterior medium as a means of expression, yet withdraws itself into itself out of this reality, and is consequently able once more by doing so to let objective existence stand forth in self-subsistent embodiment.
[Footnote 1: _Gediegene_ here seems to mean that the unity is a real one throughout all its manifestations--it is one of sterling efficacy.]
[Footnote 2: By the words _die innere Produktion der Kunst_ is meant apparently "the creative activity of art-production as ideally conceived in a series of general world-impressions (_Weltanschauungen_)." The main contrast between the theoretic apprehension of such an evolution of art as a series, held in its broad generic outlines by mind, and its practical realization as differentiated in the _actual_ products of different arts is sufficiently clear. The difficulty remains, however, as to how far Hegel regarded these _Weltanschauungen_ in their universality to have themselves an _objective_ significance no less than a _subjective_ one--how far, in other words, are they merely abstract concepts of the observer, the schemata of scientific generalization, or do actually unfold an objective, if ideal process--how far is the thought one with the revelation of the Absolute itself. It is, of course, a difficulty not unknown to the student of Hegel in other directions. At least, as translator, I must content myself, as an excuse for obscurity in this and other passages, with drawing attention (_a_) To the main contrast which is quite clear, and (_b_) To the fundamental difficulty which remains. As a rule the word _Weltanschauung_ is generally used rather in the sense of a world-outlook as from the point of view of an observer. In this passage, and still more obviously a little lower down, the sense appears to be rather world-presentment or manifestation--and the emphasis certainly on the objective aspect.
Thus the Ideal of Beauty is defined as "the collective totality of its _Weltanschauungen._" How far within such, which have previously been called exclusively _ideal_ (_innere_) can be incorporated the positive concrete embodiments of definite works of art is for myself the difficulty, which I do not profess myself to be able to solve. I am in fact not entirely clear as to the entire meaning of Hegel myself.
The mere statement that the one is made objective by the other does not appear to me to remove the difficulty; for, to mention no other objection, a particular work of art is not exclusively either concrete or objective in the sense that an ideal process is so, or an Ideal which combines the ideal stages or moments in such a process.]
[Footnote 3: _Welche sich objectivirt._ See note above.]
[Footnote 4: The present, that is, which is objective to sense.]
[Footnote 5: _So löst sich das Ideal in seine Momente auf._ According to this it would appear that the process is wholly identified with the system of the particular arts. But the universal world-presentments are surely equally a process or at least an abstract of such a process. And this is in fact affirmed lower down.]
[Footnote 6: A favourite metaphor of Hegel. The idea is that the metal is all one infusion producing a result that is like the appearance of Athene from the brow of Zeus.]
[Footnote 7: _Der Subjektivität._ The mind of the artist.]
[Footnote 8: A misprint. _Der_ should be _die._] [Footnote 9: _Zuversicht._ Confidence in itself.]
[Footnote 10: _Die Sache._ The fact, the artistic object primarily treated.]
[Footnote 11: _Die Subjektivität._ What is personal in the perception of judgment.]
[Footnote 12: A fine illustration of this passage is to be found in Miss Harrison's description of the Praxiteles Hermes in her admirable "Introductory Studies in Greek Art" (see chap, VI), a work every student of Greek Art should peruse.]
[Footnote 13: _Gediegenheit._ Sterling solidity. To understand all that is implied the above cited work of Miss Harrison is the clearest and most useful I know.]
[Footnote 14: _In Unterhaltung._ Finds himself, so to speak, directly conversing with him.]
[Footnote 15: _Der Gattungen, i.e._, specific types.]
[Footnote 17: _Subjektivität_, the ideal unity that is--not so much as soul or personality.]
[Footnote 18: _Kein subjektives Inneres._ No ideal content that implies a unifying subject.]
[Footnote 19: Same expression as last note. An ideal realm in its aspect of relation to an individual soul.]
[Footnote 21: Or reason (_Geist._)] [Footnote 22: As such content.]
[Footnote 23: This must be taken subject to qualifications which appear further on.]
[Footnote 24: _An sich selbst subjektiv._ As essentially appertinent to the individual soul.]
[Footnote 25: _Sich entgegenheit dem Geist_, _i.e._, raises itself as a medium opposed to--or, as we should say, subservient to.]
[Footnote 26: This is obviously a reference to the false theory of light advanced by Goethe and accepted by Hegel.]
[Footnote 27: _Das ganze Mensch._ The entire man with all his faculties.]
[Footnote 28: This is a reference, of course, to the Art Philosophy of Schelling.]
[Footnote 29: _Zum vornehmen Wesen._ Ironical, of course. It is part of the aristocratic pretensions of the connoisseur.]
[Footnote 30: He means that as an explanation they are obvious provided the facts are true, which he then points out in such cases is not so.]
[Footnote 31: I am not sure I follow the sense here. I presume the meaning is that, as _notionally_ considered, we have to commence with an architecture to which other arts are already subservient.
The process of elaboration has already been carried beyond mere architecture. And in this sense he calls sculpture an elaboration (_Ausbildung_) of architecture. But the addition of painting and music as such elaboration is, to say the least, an unnecessary obscurity.
Such an elaboration of a primitive form of music is suggested lower down. But the conception appears to me rather confusing.]
[Footnote 32: That is the final phase, romantic architecture.]
[Footnote 33: Other than architecture.]
CHAPTER I INDEPENDENT SYMBOLICAL ARCHITECTURE The primary and original necessity of art is this, that a conception, a thought emanate from mind, be produced and emphasized by man as the result of his activity, just as in speech there are simple ideas which man communicates thereby and makes intelligible to others. In human speech, however, the means of communication is accepted merely as a sign, and for this reason is an entirely arbitrary mode of externalization. The function of art, on the contrary, is not only to make use of the mere symbolic sign, but, in contrast to this, to supply a sensuous presence correspondent to significances. On the one hand, therefore, the sensuous product, which art presents to us, must afford lodging for an ideal content; on the other it has to represent this content in a manner which enables us to see that it is itself as its content not merely a realization of immediate reality, but an actual product of human conception and its spiritual activity. If I see, for example, an actually living lion I deduce from the unique presentment of the same the concept of lion precisely as I should in the case of a picture of it. In the picture, however, we find something more than this. It demonstrates to us that the form has been conceived in the mind, and has found the origination of its existence in the human spirit and its productive activity, so that now we not only receive the idea of an object, but the idea of a human conception of that object. There is, however, no original artistic necessity that either a lion, merely as such[34], a tree, or any other single object be added for the success of such reproduction. We have seen, on the contrary, that art, and pre-eminently plastic art, proceeds with the presentation of such objects in order to affirm in them the dexterity of the counterfeit from the artist's own point of view. The interest in its first origination is directed to bringing before the vision of the artist himself and others the primary impressions of the objective facts, and the universal or essential thoughts thus stimulated. Such popular impressions are, however, in the first instance abstract and in themselves of indefinite character, so that man, in order that he may present them to the imagination, lays hold of that which is essentially just as abstract, the material medium as it is--which is at once massive and ponderous--a material which is no doubt capable of a definite, but not of an intrinsically concrete and veritably spiritual, content. The relation between content and sensuous reality, by virtue of which the content is to pass from the concipient world into that of imagination, can consequently only be of a symbolical type. At the same time, however, a building, which purports to declare a general significance for others, stands there for no other purpose save that of essentially expressing this loftier aspect, and is consequently an independent symbol of a thought that goes straight to its essential import, and is of universal validity, a kind of speech which is present to spiritual life on its own account, however much it may not be expressed through sound. The products, therefore, of this type of architecture are necessarily stimulating to thought of themselves, and arouse universal concepts, albeit they fail to be the mere envelope and environment of significances which otherwise possess independent form.
For this reason, however, the form which permits a content of this kind to appear through it cannot perforce merely pass as symbolic sign, as, for example, in the case when we raise a cross to a deceased person, or erect stones in memory of battles. For signs of this character are doubtless qualified to stimulate ideas, but a cross, or a pile of stones, do not suggest, in virtue of their own nature, the idea which it is our object to awake, but are just as able to remind us of much else entirely different. This distinction constitutes the general notion of the stage now discussed[35].
With regard to this it may be affirmed that entire nations have known how to express their profoundest requirements in no other way than by the arts of building, or at least pre-eminently in an architectonic way. This has been, however, to an essential degree only in the East, as will appear from what we have already seen when we were called on to discuss the symbolic type of art. To an exceptional degree we may say that the constructions of the more ancient art of Babylonia, India, and Egypt--which we have now before us to some extent only in ruins, ruins which have been able to defy all ages and their revolutions, and which excite our wonder and astonishment as much on account of what is wholly fantastic in their forms as in virtue of their extraordinary proportions and mass--either completely bear this character, or in great measure are derived from it. They are works whose construction enlists at certain periods of history the entire activity and life of nations.
If, however, we inquire more closely into the _classification_ proposed by this chapter and the heads of subject-matter comprised in it, we shall find that the point of departure in this kind of architecture is not, as in the case of the classic or romantic type, from definite forms similar to that of the house. In other words we have here no independently secure content, and with it no secure mode of embodiment, advanced as the principle thereof, which is forthwith related in its further development to the entire range of the different constructions.
Rather the significances which are accepted as content remain, as in the case of the symbolic type generally, likewise inchoate and general conceptions, elementary, in many respects separated and interfused abstractions of natural life mingled with thoughts of spiritual activity, without being, ideally concentrated to a focus as the evolved states of _one_ mind[36]. This aspect of dissolution gives them the appearance of the greatest variety and change, and the object of such architecture merely consists in emphasizing in its presentation first one aspect and then another, in making such symbolical, and, by means of human labour, making such symbolism apparent to us. Before a multiplicity of content such as this we cannot pretend in this discussion to be either exhaustive or systematic. I shall limit myself to an attempt, so far as this is possible, to bring simply that which is of most importance into connection with a rational classification.
The prominent features of such a survey may be thus briefly enumerated.
As content our demand was for modes of view of a wholly general character, in which peoples and individuals possess an ideal resting-place, a point, a unity for consciousness. The _proximate_ object, therefore, of such independent and self-substantive construction is simply to raise some work, which forms the _unity_ of a nation or nations, a place in which its life may be concentrated.
We may also find along with this the further object more nearly associated, to present by means of this very embodiment, that which generally unites mankind, in other words the religious ideas of nations, by virtue of which works of this kind receive likewise a more definite content for their symbolical expression.
Furthermore, in the _second_ place, such an architecture is unable to remain fixed within the limits of this incipient determination of its _entire_ content; the symbolical images tend to become _isolated_; the symbolical content of their signification is more closely defined, and by this means we find that the distinctions of their forms tend to come into more assured prominence, as for instance we see in the case of the Lingam columns, obelisks, and other examples of this kind. From another point of view the art of building, in the spirit of such isolated self-subsistency, presses forward in its passage to _sculpture_, its acceptance of organic animal forms or human figures, its enlargement of either and association of both of them, however, on a prodigious scale, in its further addition of walls, doors and passages, and throughout in its treatment of what is adapted to sculpture in such objects in an entirely architectonic manner. The Sphinxes, Memnons, and enormous temples of Egypt come under this category.
_Thirdly_, this symbolical art of building begins to present the transitional stage to the classic type. In other words it excludes sculpture from its immediate province, and sets about constructing itself as a receptacle for other significances, which are themselves not merely expressed under an architectonic mode. That the reader may better understand the process thus indicated I will recall to memory a few famous examples of such buildings.
1. ARCHITECTURAL WORKS ERECTED WITH THE OBJECT OF UNITING PEOPLES "What is holy?" is a question raised by Goethe in a certain distich, and the answer he gives is: "that which binds together many souls."
In this sense we may affirm that what is sacred, together with the end expressed in the above association, and as such association, has actually formed the primary content of self-subsistent building and the art of such. The earliest example of this we may take from the story of the building of the tower of Babylon. In the broad expanse of the Euphrates valley we are told that mankind erected an enormous architectural work. It is built by the labour of a community, and this public character of its construction is at the same time the end and content of the work itself. And what is equally true is this, that this foundation of an association of communal labour is no mere unity of a patriarchal stamp; on the contrary we find here that the mere unity of the family is precisely that which is set on one side, and this building, which is raised to the heavens, is the objective presentment of the dissolution of the more primitive type of unity and the realization of another of more expansive range. The collective activity of peoples belonging to that age worked in it; and, in proportion as they came together in order to accomplish a building of prodigious size, the product of their activity came to be the band, which, on the ground and soil they had thus selected, and by means of the accumulated mass of stone and the architectural construction on the land--just as in our case morality, custom, and the lawful constitution of State-life--bound them in unity together. A building of this kind is in consequence also symbolical for the reason that it merely suggests the band of unity which it is, because it is only able, by means of its form and content, to express the sacred unity which unites men in an external way. It is also equally a part of this tradition that the communities have once more split apart from the centre of attraction which united them on a work of this external character.
A further and yet more important building, which has, too, already a more reliable historical basis, is the temple of Belus, of which Herodotus informs us[37]. We will not here inquire in what relation this stands to that of Biblical tradition. It is impossible to call this structure, taking it as a whole, a temple in any ordinary meaning of that term; rather we should call it a temple enclosure in the form of a square, each side of which was two stadia long, with brazen gates for means of entry. In the centre of this sacred place, according to Herodotus, who had actually seen this colossal work, a tower of thick walls (with no interior, solid throughout, in other words a πέργος στερεός) was built, both in length and breadth a stadium: on this was placed yet another, and again another on that, and so on, eight towers in all. On the outside of this a roadway was made to the top; and it appears that halfway up to the summit was a place of rest with benches on which all who ascended could rest themselves. On the summit, however, of the last tower there was a huge temple, and in the temple was a great bench, well cushioned, and before it stood a gold table.
No statue, however, was placed in the temple. No one was permitted to be there at night with the exception of the attendant women, who, according to the statements of the Chaldaeans, the priests of this god, were selected by him pre-eminently for service. The priests further maintained (_c._ 182) that the temple was visited by the god, who rested on the bench made for him. Herodotus, it is true, also states (_c._ 183) that below within this sanctuary there was yet another temple, in which was placed a great image of the god of gold, together with a huge golden table before it, and at the same time refers to two great altars outside the temple on which the sacrifices were made.
Notwithstanding these facts it is impossible to picture this gigantic building as a temple either in the Greek or modern sense of the term.
For the first seven cubic towers are solid throughout, and it is only the eighth one at the summit which serves as a resting-chamber for the invisible god, who received therein no obeisance either from priesthood or the community. His image was below outside the building, so that the entire construction was raised in really independent and self-contained form, and did not subserve the objects of religious ritual, although it is no longer a purely abstract point of unity that we find here but a sanctuary. The form remains no doubt subject to accidental causes, or it receives its determinate character purely on account of the material security of the cube form; at the same time we have evidence of a demand which seeks for a significance which may supply a determinate relation to it more directly symbolical and applicable to the work taken as a whole. We must look for this, though this is not a point expressly adverted to by Herodotus, in the number of the massive floors. There are seven of them with an eighth superposed for the nightly abode of the god. This number of seven in all probability symbolizes the seven planets and spheres of heaven.
We find also in Media cities built in accordance with such a symbolism.
There is, for example, Ecbatana with its seven encircling walls, of which Herodotus[38] states that in part by virtue of the height of the elevation on the slope of which the city was built, and in part intentionally and by artificial means, they were higher one than the other, and their battlements were coloured differently. White was on the first, black on the second, purple on the third, blue on the fourth, red on the fifth; the sixth, however, was coated with silver, and the seventh with gold, and within this last stood the royal stronghold and its treasure. "Ecbatana," remarks Creuzer, in his work on Symbolism, when referring to this type of building[39], "that Median city, and its royal stronghold in the centre, with its seven circles of walls and its battlements of seven different colours, represents the spheres of heaven which enclose the stronghold of the sun."
2. ARCHITECTURAL WORKS INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN THE ARTS OF BUILDING AND SCULPTURE The first point we have to consider in the further development of our subject consists in this, that architecture accepts for its content significances that are more _concrete_, and aims at their more symbolical presentation in accordance with _forms_ that are similarly _more concrete_, which, however, whether we take the case of their insulation[40], or collective accretion in gigantic buildings, they do not make use of in the way sculpture makes use of them, but architectonically in their own independent province. In the case of this present type we have to direct our attention to more specific facts, although all that we advance can put in no pretension to completeness, or an _a priori_ development for the reason that art in so far as it proceeds in its products to embrace the full range of the actual, that is the historical ways of comprehending the world and its religious conceptions, is lost in aspects of a contingent character.
The fundamental definition of the type is simply this, that we have a confused blend of sculpture and architecture, albeit the art of building is that which permeates all and predominates.
(_a_) We had occasion before, when discussing the symbolic type of art, to mention the fact that in the East it is frequently the universal living force of Nature, that is, not the spirituality and might of consciousness, but the productive energy of generation, which is emphasized and revered. More particularly in India this religious attitude was universal; also from its sources in Phrygia and Syria under the image of the great goddess, the fructifyer, a conception was derived which the Greeks themselves accepted. Still more closely considered this conception of the universally productive energy of Nature was represented and held sacred in the form of the organs of sex, Phallus and Lingam. This cultus was in the main promulgated in India, albeit also, as we learn from Herodotus, it was not wholly foreign to Egypt. At any rate we meet with something of the kind in the festivals of Dionysus. According to the statement of Herodotus, "they have invented other puppets as substitutes for the phalli of an ell's length, which the women draw about with a string, on which we find the sexual member no smaller in size than the rest of the body." The Greeks accepted a similar ministration, and Herodotus expressly informs us (_c._ 49) that Melampus had knowledge of the Egyptian sacrificial festival of Dionysus, and had introduced the phallus which was carried about in honour of the god. It was in India especially that the worship of the energy of generation assumed the exterior shape and significance of the organs of sex. Enormous columnar images were in this respect raised of stone as massive as towers and broadening out at the base.
Originally they were themselves independently the aim and objects of such worship; only at a later time it became customary to make openings and hollow chambers within them and deposit in these divine images, a custom which was maintained in the Hermes figures of the Greeks, little temple shrines that could be carried. The point of departure, however, in India was the phallus pillars, which had no such hollows, and which only at a later date were divided into a shell and kernel, growing thus into pagodas. For the genuine Indian pagodas, which should be distinguished essentially from later Mohammedan or other imitations, do not originate in the form of the dwelling, but are narrow and lofty, and receive their fundamental type from these columnar constructions.
We find a similar significance and form also once more in the conception of the mountain Meru as expanded by Hindoo imagination, which is conceived as twirling stick in the sea of milk, and is the creative source of the world. Herodotus mentions similar columns, some constructed in the shape of the male, others in that of the female organ. He ascribes their construction[41] to Sesostris, who erected them everywhere on his military expeditions against all the peoples he conquered. The majority of such pillars no longer existed in the days of Herodotus. It was only in Syria that the historian[42] had himself seen them. However, the fact that he ascribes them all to Sesostris is merely based on the tradition he adopts. Moreover, his explanation is wholly Greek in its colour; he converts the natural significance into one of ethical import and in this sense informs us: "In cases where Sesostris during his expedition crossed nations which were brave in battle, he set up pillars in their land together with inscriptions, which gave his own name and nation, and indicated that he had subdued these peoples. Where, on the contrary, he overcame without opposition, he indicated on such pillars the female organ of sex without attaching an inscription in order to declare the fact that these nations had been cowards in battle."
(_b_) We find further constructions of a similar nature, intermediate, that is, between sculpture and architecture, principally in Egypt. With