If then the artisan was excluded from the citizenship in some of the Greek states, and even in the most democratic of them never altogether threw off the stigma of inferiority attaching to his trade, the reason was that the life he was compelled to lead was incompatible with the Greek conception of excellence. That conception we will now proceed to examine a little more in detail. Section 2. Appreciation of External Goods. In the first place, the Greek ideal required for its realisation a solid basis of external Goods. It recognised frankly the dependence of man upon the world of sense, and the contribution to his happiness of elements over which he had at best but a partial control. Not that it placed his Good outside himself, in riches, power, and other such appendages; but that it postulated certain gifts of fortune as necessary means to his self-development. Of these the chief were, a competence, to secure him against sordid cares, health, to ensure his physical excellence, and children, to support and protect him in old age. Aristotle's definition of the happy man is "one whose activity accords with perfect virtue and who is adequately furnished with external goods, not for a casual period of time but for a complete or perfect life- time;" [Footnote: Arist. Ethics. I. ii. 1101 a 14.--Translated by Welldon.] and he remarks, somewhat caustically, that those who say that a man on the rack would be happy if only he were good, intentionally or unintentionally are talking nonsense. That here, as elsewhere, Aristotle represents the common Greek view we have abundant testimony from other sources. Even Plato, in whom there runs so clear a vein of asceticism, follows the popular judgment in reckoning high among goods, first, health, then beauty, then skill and strength in physical exercises, and lastly wealth, if it be not blind but illumined by the eye of reason. To these Goods must be added, to complete the scale, success and reputation, topics which are the constant theme of the poets' eulogy. "Two things alone there are," says Pindar, "that cherish life's bloom to its utmost sweetness amidst the fair flowers of wealth--to have good success and to win therefore fair fame;" [Footnote: Pind. Isth. iv. 14.-- Translated by E. Myers.] and the passage represents his habitual attitude. That the gifts of fortune, both personal and external, are an essential condition of excellence, is an axiom of the point of view of the Greeks. But on the other hand we never find them misled into the conception that such gifts are an end in themselves, apart from the personal qualities they are meant to support or adorn. The oriental ideal of unlimited wealth and power, enjoyed merely for its own sake, never appealed to their fine and lucid judgment. Nothing could better illustrate this point than the anecdote related by Herodotus of the interview between Solon and Croesus, King of Lydia. Croesus, proud of