YOUNG SOCRATES: I thought, Stranger, that there was nothing useless in what was said.
STRANGER: Very likely, but you may not always think so, my sweet friend; and in case any feeling of dissatisfaction should hereafter arise in your mind, as it very well may, let me lay down a principle which will apply to arguments in general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Proceed.
STRANGER: Let us begin by considering the whole nature of excess and defect, and then we shall have a rational ground on which we may praise or blame too much length or too much shortness in discussions of this kind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us do so.
STRANGER: The points on which I think that we ought to dwell are the following:—
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.