(_a_) Precisely as Egyptian belief[63] surmises a mysterious Inwardness of content in the animal form, we find the human figure represented in such a way that the most characteristic intension[64] of subjectivity is still asserted through an external relation, and consequently is unable to unfold into the freedom of Beauty. Particularly remarkable in this respect are those colossal figures of _Memnon_ which, reposing on themselves, motionless, with arms glued to the body, feet close together, inflexible, stiff and lifeless, are set up face to face with the sun, waiting for his ray to strike them, animate them, and make them resonant. Herodotus, at any rate, informs us that these Memnonic figures emitted a musical note on the sun's rising. The higher criticism has no doubt expressed itself as sceptical on the latter point; the fact, however, of a distinct note has recently been once more established both by Frenchmen and Englishmen; and though it appears that this echo is no result of previous mechanical ingenuity, we have an explanation of it in the fact that, as sometimes happens with minerals which make a crackling noise in water, the tone of these images of stone is actually produced by the collective action of the dew, the morning cool, and the subsequent impact of the sun's rays, to the extent, that is, that tiny fractures appear in the stone which then again disappear. In any case we may attribute to these colossal shapes the symbolical import, that they do not possess the spiritual principle of Life free in themselves, and consequently require that their animation should be brought to them externally by Light, which alone is able to unbar the music of their life, instead of having the power to accept the same from that real soul of Inwardness, which essentially carries with it measure and beauty. In contrast to them the human voice is the echo of personal feeling and the soul's self, without any external stimulant, just as the height of human art generally consists in the fact that the Inward of Spirit supplies the form thereof from its own substance. The Inward or soul of the human form is in Egypt still a mute, and in its animation it is the relation to external nature which alone commands attention.