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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: the attainment of the mean, seems to afford a grand support and
satisfactory proof of the doctrine which we are maintaining; for if there
are arts, there is a standard of measure, and if there is a standard of
measure, there are arts; but if either is wanting, there is neither.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True; and what is the next step?
STRANGER: The next step clearly is to divide the art of measurement into
two parts, as we have said already, and to place in the one part all the
arts which measure number, length, depth, breadth, swiftness with their
opposites; and to have another part in which they are measured with the
mean, and the fit, and the opportune, and the due, and with all those
words, in short, which denote a mean or standard removed from the extremes.
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