It is difficult to follow a regular order in the absence of chronology, when we review the multiplicity of ideas and forms which these monuments and these symbols present. Hegel thinks, nevertheless, that he is able to establish the following gradations: In the first rank are the simplest monuments, such as seem only designed to serve as a bond of union to entire nations, or to different nations. Such gigantic structures as the tower of Belus or Babylon, upon the shores of the Euphrates, present the image of the union of the peoples before their dispersion. Community of toil and effort is the aim and the very idea of the work; it is the common work of their united efforts, the symbol of the dissolution of the primitive family and of the formation of a vaster society. In a rank more elevated, appear the monuments of a more determined character, where is noticeable a mingling of architecture and sculpture, although they belong to the former. Such are those symbols which, in the East, represent the generative force of nature; the _phallus_ and the _lingam_ scattered in so great numbers throughout Phrygia and Syria, and of which India is the principal seat; in Egypt, the obelisks, which derive their symbolic significance from the rays of the sun; the Memnons, colossal statues which also represent the sun and his beneficent influence upon nature; the sphinxes, which one finds in Egypt in prodigious numbers and of astonishing size, ranged in rows in the form of avenues. These monuments, of an imposing sculpture, are grouped in masses, surrounded by walls so as to form buildings. They present, in a striking manner, the twofold character indicated above: free from all positive design, they are, above all, symbols; afterward, sculpture is confounded with architecture. They are structures without roof, without doors, without aisles, frequently forests of colums where the eye loses itself. The eye passes over objects which are there for their own sake, designed only to strike the imagination by their colossal aspect and their enigmatic sense, not to serve as a dwelling for a god, and as a place of assemblage for his worshippers. Their order and their disposition alone preserve for them an architectural character. You walk on into the midst of those human works, mute symbols which remind you of divine things; your eyes are everywhere struck with the aspect of those forms and those extraordinary figures, of those walls besprinkled with hieroglyphics, books of stone, as it were, leaves of a mysterious book. Everything there is symbolically determined—the proportions, the distances, the number of columns, etc. The Egyptians, in particular, consecrated their lives to constructing and building these monuments, by instinct, as a swarm of bees builds its hive. This was the whole life of the people. It placed there all its thought, for it could no otherwise express it.