It were possible to apprehend the above relation in such a way as though the significance were that point from which the artistic consciousness starts on its journey, and that only after having found this it begins to look round for means to express its universal conceptions through external phenomena cognate in their affinity to such conceptions. This, however, is not the way that real symbolic art proceeds. For its characteristic distinction consists in this, that its penetration fails as yet to grasp the significances in their independent consistency, independent, that is, from every mode of externality. For this reason its point of departure is rather from that which is immediately presented and its concrete existence in Nature and Spirit. This it thereupon, in the first instance, expands to the measure of the universality of such significances, whose determination such objective real existence contains only under more restricted conditions, adding this wider range in order that it may create a form from Spirit, which is to make that universality visible to consciousness in this particular reality when once it is set forth clearly before perception. Regarded as symbolical forms, therefore, the images of art have not as yet attained a form truly adequate to Spirit, inasmuch as Spirit itself is not as yet at this stage essentially clear and thereby free Spirit; but we have at least here embodiments, which essentially proclaim the fact to us, that they are not merely selected to represent simply themselves, but are intended to point to significances of profounder intension and more--comprehensive range. That which is purely natural and sensuous asserts itself as fact and nothing beside; the symbolical work of art, however, whether it be the phenomena of Nature or the human figure that it makes visible to the eye, points at the same time over and outside such facts to something further, which, however, must possess an intimate root of affinity with the images that are thus displayed, and an essential bond of relation with them. This association between the concrete form and its universal significance may conceivably be present in many different ways. At one time the emphasis will be laid on the external aspect, and it will consequently be more obscure; at another, however, the basis of affinity will be more pronounced as in the case when the universality, which is to be symbolized, constitutes, in fact, the essential content of the concrete phenomenon. In this case naturally it is a much simpler matter to grasp the symbolic character of the object.