To such an extent buildings of this type run on for miles with their rows of animal figures, their Memnons, their immense doors, their walls and colonnades of the most stupendous dimensions, some of greater breadth, some of less, their isolated obelisks and much else, that while we wander within works so huge and so calculated to excite our surprise, which in part possess merely a more restricted purpose in the diverse activities of the system of culture to which they belong the question is irresistible, what these masses of stone have to tell us of the Divine they secrete. For on closer inspection symbolical meanings are everywhere in-woven in these constructions in that the number of Sphinxes and Memnons, the position of columns and passages have relation to the days of the year, the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the seven planets, the great periods of the lunar cycle and other phenomena. To some extent we find here that sculpture has not yet freed itself from architecture; and in some degree again the really architectonic aspect of measure, interval, number of columns, walls, steps, and so forth is so treated, that the real object of these relations is not to be found in their own intrinsic character, that is, in their symmetry, harmony, and beauty, but is referable to their symbolical definition. And in this way all this work of construction asserts itself independently as an object in itself, as itself a cultus, in which both nation and king are united. Many works, such as canals, the lake Maeotis, and generally waterworks have a particular relation to agriculture and the floods of the Nile. An example of this we have in the statement of Herodotus[51] to the effect that Sesostris had the entire country, which up to this time had been ridden and driven over, cut up into canals to provide drinking-water, and in this way made horses and wagons useless. The main constructions, however, remained those buildings with a religious purpose, which the Egyptians instinctively piled up much as the bees do their cells. Their property was regulated[52], their other social conditions equally so, the soil of the country was extraordinarily fruitful, and required no laborious cultivation, so that we may almost say their agriculture merely consisted in sowing and harvest. We hear little of other interests and exploits, such as are common to nations, and, with the exception of the tales of the priesthood with reference to the maritime undertakings of Sesostris, we have no account of sea voyages. Speaking generally, the Egyptians restricted their efforts to this work of construction within their own country. It is, however, what we have called self-substantive and symbolical architecture which forms the fundamental type of their imposing works and for this reason that the human ideal, the spiritual in its aims and external forms, has not as yet come to self-knowledge, or constituted itself the object and product of its free activity.