Dialogues

as well as by the like. How could there be names for all the numbers unless you allow that convention is used? Imitation is a poor thing, and has to be supplemented by convention, which is another poor thing; although I agree with you in thinking that the most perfect form of language is found only where there is a perfect correspondence of sound and meaning. But let me ask you what is the use and force of names? “The use of names, Socrates, is to inform, and he who knows names knows things.” Do you mean that the discovery of names is the same as the discovery of things? “Yes.” But do you not see that there is a degree of deception about names? He who first gave names, gave them according to his conception, and that may have been erroneous. “But then, why, Socrates, is language so consistent? all words have the same laws.” Mere consistency is no test of truth. In geometrical problems, for example, there may be a flaw at the beginning, and yet the conclusion may follow consistently. And, therefore, a wise man will take especial care of first principles. But are words really consistent; are there not as many terms of praise which signify rest as which signify motion? There is ἐπιστήμη, which is connected with στάσις, as μνήμη is with μένω. Βέβαιον, again, is the expression of station and position; ἱστορία is clearly descriptive of the stopping (ἱστάναι) of the stream; πιστὸν indicates the cessation of motion; and there are many words having a bad sense, which are connected with ideas of motion, such as συμφορὰ, ἁμαρτία, etc.: ἀμαθία, again, might be explained, as ἡ ἄμα θεῷ ἰόντος πορεία, and ἀκολασία as ἡ ἀκολουθία τοῖς πράγμασιν. Thus the bad names are framed on the same principle as the good, and other examples might be given, which would favour a theory of rest rather than of motion. “Yes; but the greater number of words express motion.” Are we to count them, Cratylus; and is correctness of names to be determined by the voice of a majority?

Here is another point: we were saying that the legislator gives names; and therefore we must suppose that he knows the things which he names: but how can he have learnt things from names before there were any names? “I believe, Socrates, that some power more than human first gave things their names, and that these were necessarily true names.” Then how came the giver of names to contradict himself, and to make some names expressive of rest, and others of motion? “I do not suppose that he did make them both.” Then which did he make⁠—those which are expressive of rest, or those which are expressive of motion?⁠ ⁠… But if some names are true and others false, we can only decide between them, not by counting words, but by appealing to things. And, if so, we must allow that things may be known without names; for names, as we have several times admitted, are the images of things; and the higher knowledge is of things, and is not to be derived from names; and though I do not doubt that the inventors of language gave names, under the idea that all things are in a state of motion and flux, I believe that they were mistaken; and that having fallen into a whirlpool themselves, they are trying to drag us after them. For is there not a true beauty and a true good, which is always beautiful and always good? Can the thing beauty be vanishing away from us while the words are yet in our mouths? And they could not be known by anyone if they are always passing away⁠—for if they are always passing away, the observer has no opportunity of observing their state. Whether the doctrine of the flux or of the eternal nature be the truer, is hard to determine. But no man of sense will put himself, or the education of his mind, in the power of names: he will not condemn himself to be an unreal thing, nor will he believe that everything is in a flux like the water in a leaky vessel, or that the world is a man who has a running at the nose. This doctrine may be true, Cratylus, but is also very likely to be untrue; and therefore I would have you reflect while you are young, and find out the truth, and when you know come and tell me. “I have thought, Socrates, and after a good deal of thinking I incline to Heracleitus.” Then another day, my friend, you shall give me a lesson. “Very good, Socrates, and I hope that you will continue to study these things yourself.”

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We may now consider (I) how far Plato in the “Cratylus” has discovered the true principles of language, and then (II) proceed to compare modern speculations respecting the origin and nature of language with the anticipations of his genius.

I. (1) Plato is aware that language is not the work of chance; nor does he deny that there is a natural fitness in names. He only insists that this natural fitness shall be intelligibly explained. But he has no idea that language is a natural organism. He would have heard with surprise that languages are the common work of whole nations in a primitive or semi-barbarous age. How, he would probably have argued, could men devoid of art have contrived a structure of such complexity? No answer could have been given to this question, either in ancient or in modern times, until the nature of primitive antiquity had been thoroughly studied, and the instincts of man had been shown to exist in greater force, when his state approaches more nearly to that of children or animals. The philosophers