For the reasons, then, already advanced the ideal province of art must be held secure from the bare necessities of life. Property and the favour of circumstances, in so far as they supply a condition, under which poverty and labour vanish not merely for this or that hour, but for the most part altogether, are for this reason, we will not say incompatible with art, but rather in full concurrence with the Ideal. Yet it would only betray a real lack of comprehension[385], if in cases where the conditions of our art compelled us to consider the facts of life in all their multifold variety, we nevertheless omitted from our composition all reference to the relation in which human life is placed to these very natural constraints. It is true enough that such are purely finite conditions; but art is not therefore able to dispense with them. They must not, in fact, even be treated by her as something merely bad. It is rather her function to reconcile them with the Real in her embracing unity. And indeed the finest actions and opinions which she reflects on her mirror, if we consider the particular form of the determination and content alone[386], are necessarily limited and consequently finite. That I find it necessary to provide myself with nourishment, food and drink, a house to live in, and clothing to wear, seats to sit upon, and everything else incidental to domestic life is no doubt an inevitable concomitant of the fact that I live in the world; but the life that only I myself experience within me permeates, this external aspect of my life so completely, that men are fain to clothe and arm the very gods themselves, and to picture them under conditions inseparable from a variety of things they seek to possess, and find their satisfaction in obtaining. In short, for art to be possible, this satisfaction of the necessities of life must be assured to us. Or to take an example where this is not so, there is that of adventurous knights who only secure their immunity from external hardship through the continued success of their enterprise, which is therefore itself but a contingency, in much the same way as the prosperity of savages is contingent upon the amenities of Nature. The conditions in both cases are not favourable to Art. Her true Ideal is not merely to be found where our humanity is barely lifted above the most rigorous condition of dependence upon the smiles or frowns of Nature, but is most of all at home in that superfluity which suffers it in conjunction with Nature's bounty to expatiate with freedom no less than delight. The above remarks are obviously of very general application. Two considerations, however, of a somewhat more restricted interest may be deduced from them.