This was the state of Egypt under _Menes_. His name suggests a more than merely accidental analogy with _Manû_, _Minos_, or _Man_, and has reference to the time when _man_ became conscious of law, and assembled into a social bondship. The Egyptians, before a Menes could have ruled over them, must have gone through the savage and nomadic, or pastoral stages, and have passed from the palæolithic, neolithic, and bronze ages of art into that of iron. When did they invent their _hieroglyphs_, which must first have been _ideographic_ before they became _phonetic_? From the first-recorded meeting between the Hebrews, then still nomads, and the Egyptians, it appears that the latter already then formed a well-organised State-body. As regards their monuments, we see them enter the mythical age with their grand stone-constructions, their pyramids, colosses, temples, palaces, sphinxes, catacombs and obelisks, as a developed artistic nation. All these stupendous works are constructed for eternity; there is nothing nomadic in them, though this element here and there shows itself in colossal petrifactions. Wood-constructions and textile fabrics form the bases of their ornamentation, but this influence must have taken effect in antediluvian, nay, even pre-Adamitic, times, when humanity everywhere else was sunk in a state of unconscious inactivity. The mound, constructed with geometrical accuracy as a huge pyramid, must have had an origin somewhere. The construction itself has a purpose. The crystal form surrounds an inner kernel, around which the stone shell is laid; it not only serves to point upwards, but also downwards. Thus mortality and immortality are already blended into one in these hoary monuments. To proclaim the grandeur of the silent inhabitant, once a mighty ruler, to the four quarters of the globe, was the purpose of these pyramids. Natural caves must have suggested their tombs and catacombs. The sacred Nile with its majestic flow is reflected in the endless horizontal lines of their temples. The rising peaks of mountains seem to have suggested their huge pylons. The rays of the sun were transformed by them into stones, recording, as gigantic obelisks, the deeds of their kings. When did these obelisks shake off the rough shape of mere huge monoliths, placed in plains to commemorate some grand event? To point upwards in isolated forms was the secret tendency of these half-sculptured, half-architectural marvels. Trees and forests were turned by the Egyptian artists into hypostyle halls, with innumerable columns, spreading a mysterious gloom about them. The Chinese were practical; the Trans-Himâlâyans metaphysical; the Cis-Himâlâyans agricultural, commercial and warlike; and the Egyptians pre-eminently architectural and _monumental_. Their whole historical life may be divided into the following art-periods. _(a)_ The Ante-monumental. _(b)_ The Pyramidal. _(c)_ The Hieratic. _(d)_ The Ptolemaic.