Cratylus

Socrates. If we wished to designate that which is above and is light, we should, I fancy, raise our hand towards heaven in imitation of the nature of the thing in question; but if the things to be designated were below or heavy, we should extend our hands towards the ground; and if we wished to mention a galloping horse or any other animal, we should, of course, make our bodily attitudes as much like theirs as possible.

Hermogenes. I think you are quite right; there is no other way.

Socrates. For the expression of anything, I fancy, would be accomplished by bodily imitation of that which was to be expressed.

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. And when we wish to express anything by voice or tongue or mouth, will not our expression by these means be accomplished in any given instance when an imitation of something is accomplished by them?

Hermogenes. I think that is inevitable.

Socrates. A name, then, it appears, is a vocal imitation of that which is imitated, and he who imitates with his voice names that which he imitates.

Hermogenes. I think that is correct.

Socrates. By Zeus, I do not think it is quite correct, yet, my friend.

Hermogenes. Why not?

Socrates. We should be obliged to agree that people who imitate sheep and cocks and other animals were naming those which they imitate.

Hermogenes. Yes, so we should.

Socrates. And do you think that is correct?

Hermogenes. No, I do not; but, Socrates, what sort of an imitation is a name?

Socrates. In the first place we shall not, in my opinion, be making names, if we imitate things as we do in music, although musical imitation also is vocal; and secondly we shall make no names by imitating that which music imitates. What I mean is this: all objects have sound and shape, and many have color, have they not?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. Well then, the art of naming is not employed in the imitation of those qualities, and has nothing to do with them. The arts which are concerned with them are music and design, are they not?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Here is another point. Has not each thing an essential nature, just as it has a color and the other qualities we just mentioned? Indeed, in the first place, have not color and sound and all other things which may properly be said to exist, each and all an essential nature?

Hermogenes. I think so.

Socrates. Well, then, if anyone could imitate this essential nature of each thing by means of letters and syllables, he would show what each thing really is, would he not?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. And what will you call him who can do this, as you called the others musician and painter? What will you call this man?

Hermogenes. I think, Socrates, he is what we have been looking for all along, the name-maker.

Socrates. If that is the case, is it our next duty to consider whether in these names about which you were asking—flow, motion, and restraint—the namemaker grasps with his letters and syllables the reality of the things named and imitates their essential nature, or not?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. Well now, let us see whether those are the only primary names, or there are others.

Hermogenes. I think there are others.

Socrates. Yes, most likely there are. Now what is the method of division with which the imitator begins his imitation? Since the imitation of the essential nature is made with letters and syllables, would not the most correct way be for us to separate the letters first, just as those who undertake the practice of rhythms separate first the qualities of the letters, then those of the syllables, and then, but not till then, come to the study of rhythms?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Must not we, too, separate first the vowels, then in their several classes the consonants or mutes, as they are called by those who specialize in phonetics, and also the letters which are neither vowels nor mutes, as well as the various classes that exist among the vowels themselves? And when we have made all these divisions properly, we must in turn give names to the things which ought to have them, if there are any names to which they can all, like the letters, be referred, from which it is possible to see what their nature is and whether there are any classes among them, as there are among letters. When we have properly examined all these points, we must know how to apply each letter with reference to its fitness, whether one letter is to be applied to one thing or many are to be combined; just as painters, when they wish to produce an imitation, sometimes use only red, sometimes some other color, and sometimes mix many colors, as when they are making a picture of a man or something of that sort, employing each color, I suppose, as they think the particular picture demands it. In just this way we, too, shall apply letters to things, using one letter for one thing, when that seems to be required, or many letters together, forming syllables, as they are called, and in turn combining syllables, and by their combination forming nouns and verbs. And from nouns and verbs again we shall finally construct something great and fair and complete. Just as in our comparison we made the picture by the art of painting, so now we shall make language by the art of naming, or of rhetoric, or whatever it be.