Blake suggests that people may understand a proper limit only after encountering or imagining what lies beyond it. In this sense, knowing what is “enough” depends on comparison with excess. Judgement is formed not only through abstract rules but also through experience of extremes and their consequences.

The saying appears among the “Proverbs of Hell” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where Blake frequently uses paradox to challenge conventional moral assumptions. It should therefore not be read simply as advice to pursue excess. Instead, it presents excess as a possible means of discovering boundaries that cannot always be understood in advance.

The quotation is primarily epistemological because it concerns how knowledge of limits is acquired. It also applies to practical life, where experience can clarify the difference between sufficiency and overindulgence.