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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: 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
Statesman |
