283–284
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Please tell how to make the division.
Stranger
Str. In this way: one part is concerned with relative greatness or smallness, the other with the something without which production would not be possible.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. What do you mean?
Stranger
Str. Do you not think that, by the nature of the case, we must say that the greater is greater than the less and than nothing else, and that the less is less than the greater and than nothing else?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Yes.
20
Stranger
Str. But must we not also assert the real existence of excess beyond the standard of the mean, and of inferiority to the mean, whether in words or deeds, and is not the chief difference between good men and bad found in such excess or deficiency?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. That is clear.
Stranger
Str. Then we must assume that there are these two kinds of great and small, and these two ways of distinguishing between them; we must not, as we did a little while ago, say that they are relative to one another only, but rather, as we have just said, that one kind is relative in that way, and the other is relative to the standard of the mean. Should we care to learn the reason for this?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Of course.
Stranger
Str. If we assert that the greater has no relation to anything except the less, it will never have any relation to the standard of the mean, will it?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. No.
