The measure is the rational-social faculty. A brief theorem on the rank of values. The judge is declared to be "the rational and political faculty" (ἡ λογικὴ καὶ πολιτικὴ δύναμις) — the very pair of priorities from 7.55 (rationality + sociability). Its verdict: whatever it finds "neither intelligent (νοερόν) nor TERMsocial (κοινωνικόν)," it "with reason (εὐλόγως) DOGMAjudges to be beneath itself" (καταδεέστερον ἑαυτῆς).

An inner table of ranks. The mechanism of revaluation: a thing's worth is fixed not by rumour nor by its pleasantness but by whether it serves a human being's two highest powers — to think rightly and to live in common. Pleasure, wealth, fame are "neither νοερά nor κοινωνικά": they aid neither reason nor community, and so are by definition below the rational-social centre that appraises them. The DOGMAruling part cannot set above itself what is by nature beneath it — else the judge would submit to the defendant. Thus the Stoic scale (good / indifferent) is derived not from decree but from function: the highest thing in a human being of itself sends downward all that does not serve its two works. The strict term TERMκοινωνικόν is in the text (νοερόν, a derived adjective of νοῦς, in the commentary). The discipline is assent.