others, and cannot convince myself that there is any principle of
correctness in names other than convention and agreement; any name which
you give, in my opinion, is the right one, and if you change that and give
another, the new name is as correct as the old--we frequently change the
names of our slaves, and the newly-imposed name is as good as the old: for
there is no name given to anything by nature; all is convention and habit
of the users;--such is my view. But if I am mistaken I shall be happy to
hear and learn of Cratylus, or of any one else.
SOCRATES: I dare say that you may be right, Hermogenes: let us see;--Your
meaning is, that the name of each thing is only that which anybody agrees
to call it?
HERMOGENES: That is my notion.
SOCRATES: Whether the giver of the name be an individual or a city?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, now, let me take an instance;--suppose that I call a man a
horse or a horse a man, you mean to say that a man will be rightly called a
horse by me individually, and rightly called a man by the rest of the
world; and a horse again would be rightly called a man by me and a horse by
the world:--that is your meaning?
HERMOGENES: He would, according to my view.
SOCRATES: But how about truth, then? you would acknowledge that there is
in words a true and a false?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And there are true and false propositions?
HERMOGENES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And a true proposition says that which is, and a false
proposition says that which is not?
HERMOGENES: Yes; what other answer is possible?
SOCRATES: Then in a proposition there is a true and false?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But is a proposition true as a whole only, and are the parts
untrue?
HERMOGENES: No; the parts are true as well as the whole.
SOCRATES: Would you say the large parts and not the smaller ones, or every
part?
HERMOGENES: I should say that every part is true.
SOCRATES: Is a proposition resolvable into any part smaller than a name?
HERMOGENES: No; that is the smallest.
SOCRATES: Then the name is a part of the true proposition?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, and a true part, as you say.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is not the part of a falsehood also a falsehood?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then, if propositions may be true and false, names may be true
and false?
HERMOGENES: So we must infer.
SOCRATES: And the name of anything is that which any one affirms to be the
name?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And will there be so many names of each thing as everybody says
that there are? and will they be true names at the time of uttering them?
HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, I can conceive no correctness of names other
than this; you give one name, and I another; and in different cities and
countries there are different names for the same things; Hellenes differ
from barbarians in their use of names, and the several Hellenic tribes from
one another.
SOCRATES: But would you say, Hermogenes, that the things differ as the
names differ? and are they relative to individuals, as Protagoras tells us?
For he says that man is the measure of all things, and that things are to
me as they appear to me, and that they are to you as they appear to you.
Do you agree with him, or would you say that things have a permanent
essence of their own?
HERMOGENES: There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in my
perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him at
all.
SOCRATES: What! have you ever been driven to admit that there was no such
thing as a bad man?
HERMOGENES: No, indeed; but I have often had reason to think that there
are very bad men, and a good many of them.
SOCRATES: Well, and have you ever found any very good ones?
HERMOGENES: Not many.
SOCRATES: Still you have found them?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you hold that the very good were the very wise, and
the very evil very foolish? Would that be your view?
HERMOGENES: It would.
SOCRATES: But if Protagoras is right, and the truth is that things are as
they appear to any one, how can some of us be wise and some of us foolish?
HERMOGENES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And if, on the other hand, wisdom and folly are really
distinguishable, you will allow, I think, that the assertion of Protagoras
can hardly be correct. For if what appears to each man is true to him, one
man cannot in reality be wiser than another.
HERMOGENES: He cannot.
SOCRATES: Nor will you be disposed to say with Euthydemus, that all things
equally belong to all men at the same moment and always; for neither on his
view can there be some good and others bad, if virtue and vice are always
equally to be attributed to all.
HERMOGENES: There cannot.
SOCRATES: But if neither is right, and things are not relative to
individuals, and all things do not equally belong to all at the same moment
and always, they must be supposed to have their own proper and permanent
essence: they are not in relation to us, or influenced by us, fluctuating
according to our fancy, but they are independent, and maintain to their own
essence the relation prescribed by nature.
HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that you have said the truth.
SOCRATES: Does what I am saying apply only to the things themselves, or
equally to the actions which proceed from them? Are not actions also a
class of being?
HERMOGENES: Yes, the actions are real as well as the things.
SOCRATES: Then the actions also are done according to their proper nature,
and not according to our opinion of them? In cutting, for example, we do
not cut as we please, and with any chance instrument; but we cut with the
proper instrument only, and according to the natural process of cutting;
and the natural process is right and will succeed, but any other will fail
and be of no use at all.
HERMOGENES: I should say that the natural way is the right way.
SOCRATES: Again, in burning, not every way is the right way; but the right
way is the natural way, and the right instrument the natural instrument.
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And this holds good of all actions?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And speech is a kind of action?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And will a man speak correctly who speaks as he pleases? Will
not the successful speaker rather be he who speaks in the natural way of
speaking, and as things ought to be spoken, and with the natural
instrument? Any other mode of speaking will result in error and failure.
HERMOGENES: I quite agree with you.
SOCRATES: And is not naming a part of speaking? for in giving names men
speak.
HERMOGENES: That is true.
SOCRATES: And if speaking is a sort of action and has a relation to acts,
is not naming also a sort of action?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And we saw that actions were not relative to ourselves, but had
a special nature of their own?
HERMOGENES: Precisely.
SOCRATES: Then the argument would lead us to infer that names ought to be
given according to a natural process, and with a proper instrument, and not
at our pleasure: in this and no other way shall we name with success.
HERMOGENES: I agree.
SOCRATES: But again, that which has to be cut has to be cut with
something?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that which has to be woven or pierced has to be woven or
pierced with something?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that which has to be named has to be named with something?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: What is that with which we pierce?
HERMOGENES: An awl.
SOCRATES: And with which we weave?
HERMOGENES: A shuttle.
SOCRATES: And with which we name?
HERMOGENES: A name.
SOCRATES: Very good: then a name is an instrument?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Suppose that I ask, 'What sort of instrument is a shuttle?' And
you answer, 'A weaving instrument.'
HERMOGENES: Well.
SOCRATES: And I ask again, 'What do we do when we weave?'--The answer is,
that we separate or disengage the warp from the woof.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And may not a similar description be given of an awl, and of
instruments in general?
HERMOGENES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And now suppose that I ask a similar question about names: will
you answer me? Regarding the name as an instrument, what do we do when we
name?
HERMOGENES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: Do we not give information to one another, and distinguish
things according to their natures?
HERMOGENES: Certainly we do.
SOCRATES: Then a name is an instrument of teaching and of distinguishing
natures, as the shuttle is of distinguishing the threads of the web.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the shuttle is the instrument of the weaver?
HERMOGENES: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: Then the weaver will use the shuttle well--and well means like a
weaver? and the teacher will use the name well--and well means like a
teacher?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when the weaver uses the shuttle, whose work will he be
using well?
HERMOGENES: That of the carpenter.
SOCRATES: And is every man a carpenter, or the skilled only?
HERMOGENES: Only the skilled.
SOCRATES: And when the piercer uses the awl, whose work will he be using
well?
HERMOGENES: That of the smith.
SOCRATES: And is every man a smith, or only the skilled?
HERMOGENES: The skilled only.
SOCRATES: And when the teacher uses the name, whose work will he be using?
HERMOGENES: There again I am puzzled.
SOCRATES: Cannot you at least say who gives us the names which we use?
HERMOGENES: Indeed I cannot.
SOCRATES: Does not the law seem to you to give us them?
HERMOGENES: Yes, I suppose so.
SOCRATES: Then the teacher, when he gives us a name, uses the work of the
legislator?
HERMOGENES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And is every man a legislator, or the skilled only?
HERMOGENES: The skilled only.
SOCRATES: Then, Hermogenes, not every man is able to give a name, but only
a maker of names; and this is the legislator, who of all skilled artisans
in the world is the rarest.
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And how does the legislator make names? and to what does he
look? Consider this in the light of the previous instances: to what does
the carpenter look in making the shuttle? Does he not look to that which
is naturally fitted to act as a shuttle?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And suppose the shuttle to be broken in making, will he make
another, looking to the broken one? or will he look to the form according
to which he made the other?
HERMOGENES: To the latter, I should imagine.
SOCRATES: Might not that be justly called the true or ideal shuttle?
HERMOGENES: I think so.
SOCRATES: And whatever shuttles are wanted, for the manufacture of
garments, thin or thick, of flaxen, woollen, or other material, ought all
of them to have the true form of the shuttle; and whatever is the shuttle
best adapted to each kind of work, that ought to be the form which the
maker produces in each case.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the same holds of other instruments: when a man has
discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must
express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the
material, whatever it may be, which he employs; for example, he ought to
know how to put into iron the forms of awls adapted by nature to their
several uses?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And how to put into wood forms of shuttles adapted by nature to
their uses?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: For the several forms of shuttles naturally answer to the
several kinds of webs; and this is true of instruments in general.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then, as to names: ought not our legislator also to know how to
put the true natural name of each thing into sounds and syllables, and to
make and give all names with a view to the ideal name, if he is to be a
namer in any true sense? And we must remember that different legislators
will not use the same syllables. For neither does every smith, although he
may be making the same instrument for the same purpose, make them all of
the same iron. The form must be the same, but the material may vary, and
still the instrument may be equally good of whatever iron made, whether in
Hellas or in a foreign country;--there is no difference.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the legislator, whether he be Hellene or barbarian, is not
therefore to be deemed by you a worse legislator, provided he gives the
true and proper form of the name in whatever syllables; this or that
country makes no matter.
HERMOGENES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: But who then is to determine whether the proper form is given to
the shuttle, whatever sort of wood may be used? the carpenter who makes, or
the weaver who is to use them?
HERMOGENES: I should say, he who is to use them, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And who uses the work of the lyre-maker? Will not he be the man
who knows how to direct what is being done, and who will know also whether
the work is being well done or not?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And who is he?
HERMOGENES: The player of the lyre.
SOCRATES: And who will direct the shipwright?
HERMOGENES: The pilot.
SOCRATES: And who will be best able to direct the legislator in his work,
and will know whether the work is well done, in this or any other country?
Will not the user be the man?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And this is he who knows how to ask questions?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And how to answer them?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And him who knows how to ask and answer you would call a
dialectician?
HERMOGENES: Yes; that would be his name.
SOCRATES: Then the work of the carpenter is to make a rudder, and the
pilot has to direct him, if the rudder is to be well made.
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And the work of the legislator is to give names, and the
