the woof? In
order that our labour may not seem to be lost, I must explain the whole
nature of excess and defect. There are two arts of measuring--one is
concerned with relative size, and the other has reference to a mean or
standard of what is meet. The difference between good and evil is the
difference between a mean or measure and excess or defect. All things
require to be compared, not only with one another, but with the mean,
without which there would be no beauty and no art, whether the art of
the statesman or the art of weaving or any other; for all the arts guard
against excess or defect, which are real evils. This we must endeavour
to show, if the arts are to exist; and the proof of this will be
a harder piece of work than the demonstration of the existence of
not-being which we proved in our discussion about the Sophist. At
present I am content with the indirect proof that the existence of such
a standard is necessary to the existence of the arts. The standard or
measure, which we are now only applying to the arts, may be some day
required with a view to the demonstration of absolute truth.

We may now divide this art of measurement into two parts; placing in
the one part all the arts which measure the relative size or number
of objects, and in the other all those which depend upon a mean or
standard. Many accomplished men say that the art of measurement has to
do with all things, but these persons, although in this notion of theirs
they may very likely be right, are apt to fail in seeing the differences
of classes--they jumble together in one the 'more' and the 'too much,'
which are very different things. Whereas the right way is to find the
differences of classes, and to comprehend the things which have any
affinity under the same class.

I will make one more observation by the way. When a pupil at a school is
asked the letters which make up a particular word, is he not asked with
a view to his knowing the same letters in all words? And our enquiry
about the Statesman in like manner is intended not only to improve our
knowledge of politics, but our reasoning powers generally. Still less
would any one analyze the nature of weaving for its own sake. There
is no difficulty in exhibiting sensible images, but the greatest and
noblest truths have no outward form adapted to the eye of sense, and are
only revealed in thought. And all that we are now saying is said for the
sake of them. I make these remarks, becaus