ness, excess and defect; with all of these the
art of measurement is conversant.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.

STRANGER: And the art of measurement has to be divided into two parts,
with a view to our present purpose.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Where would you make the division?

STRANGER: As thus: I would make two parts, one having regard to the
relativity of greatness and smallness to each other; and there is
another, without which the existence of production would be impossible.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?

STRANGER: Do you not think that it is only natural for the greater to be
called greater with reference to the less alone, and the less less with
reference to the greater alone?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.

STRANGER: Well, but is there not also something exceeding and exceeded
by the principle of the mean, both in speech and action, and is not this
a reality, and the chief mark of difference between good and bad men?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Plainly.

STRANGER: Then we must suppose that the great and small exist and are
discerned in both these ways, and not, as we were saying before, only
relatively to one another, but there must also be another comparison of
them with the mean or ideal standard; would you like to hear the reason
why?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.

STRANGER: If we assume the greater to exist only in relation to the
less, there will never be any comparison of either with the mean.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: And would not this doctrine be the ruin of all the arts and
their creations; would not the art of the Statesman and the aforesaid
art of weaving disappear? For all these arts are on the watch against
excess and defect, not as unrealities, but as real evils, which occasion
a difficulty in action; and the excellence or beauty of every work of
art is due to this observance of measure.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.

STRANGER: But if the science of the Statesman disappears, the search for
the royal science will be impossible.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: Well, then, as in the case of the Sophist we extorted the
inference that not-being had an existence, because here was the point
at which the argument eluded our grasp, so in this we must endeavour
to show that the greater and less are not only to be measured with one
another, but also have to do with the production of the mean; for if
this is not admitted, neither a statesman nor any other man of action
can be an undisputed master of his