Page - 834 - in The Complete Plato

YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: Length and shortness, 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. 834