SOCRATES: Doxa is either derived from dioxis (pursuit), and expresses the
march of the soul in the pursuit of knowledge, or from the shooting of a
bow (toxon); the latter is more likely, and is confirmed by oiesis
(thinking), which is only oisis (moving), and implies the movement of the
soul to the essential nature of each thing--just as boule (counsel) has to
do with shooting (bole); and boulesthai (to wish) combines the notion of
aiming and deliberating--all these words seem to follow doxa, and all
involve the idea of shooting, just as aboulia, absence of counsel, on the
other hand, is a mishap, or missing, or mistaking of the mark, or aim, or
proposal, or object.
HERMOGENES: You are quickening your pace now, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why yes, the end I now dedicate to God, not, however, until I
have explained anagke (necessity), which ought to come next, and ekousion
(the voluntary). Ekousion is certainly the yielding (eikon) and
unresisting--the notion implied is yielding and not opposing, yielding, as
I was just now saying, to that motion which is in accordance with our will;
but the necessary and resistant being contrary to our will, implies error
and ignorance; the idea is taken from walking through a ravine which is
impassable, and rugged, and overgrown, and impedes motion--and this is the
derivation of the word anagkaion (necessary) an agke ion, going through a
ravine. But while my strength lasts let us persevere, and I hope that you
will persevere with your questions.
HERMOGENES: Well, then, let me ask about the greatest and noblest, such as
aletheia (truth) and pseudos (falsehood) and on (being), not forgetting to
enquire why the word onoma (name), which is the theme of our discussion,
has this name of onoma.
SOCRATES: You know the word maiesthai (to seek)?
HERMOGENES: Yes;--meaning the same as zetein (to enquire).
SOCRATES: The word onoma seems to be a compressed sentence, signifying on
ou zetema (being for which there is a search); as is still more obvious in
onomaston (notable), which states in so many words that real existence is
that for which there is a seeking (on ou masma); aletheia is also an
agglomeration of theia ale (divine wandering), implying the divine motion
of existence; pseudos (falsehood) is the opposite of motion; here is
another ill name given by the legislator to stagnation and forced inaction,
which he compares to sleep (eudein); but the original meaning of the word
is disguised by the addition of psi; on and ousia are ion with an iota
broken off; this agrees with the true principle, for being (on) is also
moving (ion), and the same may be said of not being, which is likewise
called not going (oukion or ouki on = ouk ion).
HERMOGENES: You have hammered away at them manfully; but suppose that some
one were to say to you, what is the word ion, and what are reon and doun?--
show me their fitness.
SOCRATES: You mean to say, how should I answer him?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: One way of giving the appearance of an answer has been already
suggested.
HERMOGENES: What way?
SOCRATES: To say that names which we do not understand are of foreign
origin; and this is very likely the right answer, and something of this
kind may be true of them; but also the original forms of words may have
been lost in the lapse of ages; names have been so twisted in all manner of
ways, that I should not be surprised if the old language when compared with
that now in use would appear to us to be a barbarous tongue.
HERMOGENES: Very likely.
SOCRATES: Yes, very likely. But still the enquiry demands our earnest
attention and we must not flinch. For we should remember, that if a person
go on analysing names into words, and enquiring also into the elements out
of which the words are formed, and keeps on always repeating this process,
he who has to answer him must at last give up the enquiry in despair.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And at what point ought he to lose heart and give up the
enquiry? Must he not stop when he comes to the names which are the
elements of all other names and sentences; for these cannot be supposed to
be made up of other names? The word agathon (good), for example, is, as we
were saying, a compound of agastos (admirable) and thoos (swift). And
probably thoos is made up of other elements, and these again of others.
But if we take a word which is incapable of further resolution, then we
shall be right in saying that we have at last reached a primary element,
which need not be resolved any further.
HERMOGENES: I believe you to be in the right.
SOCRATES: And suppose the names about which you are now asking should turn
out to be primary elements, must not their truth or law be examined
according to some new method?
HERMOGENES: Very likely.
SOCRATES: Quite so, Hermogenes; all that has preceded would lead to this
conclusion. And if, as I think, the conclusion is true, then I shall again
say to you, come and help me, that I may not fall into some absurdity in
stating the principle of primary names.
HERMOGENES: Let me hear, and I will do my best to assist you.
SOCRATES: I think that you will acknowledge with me, that one principle is
applicable to all names, primary as well as secondary--when they are
regarded simply as names, there is no difference in them.
HERMOGENES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: All the names that we have been explaining were intended to
indicate the nature of things.
HERMOGENES: Of course.
SOCRATES: And that this is true of the primary quite as much as of the
secondary names, is implied in their being names.
HERMOGENES: Surely.
SOCRATES: But the secondary, as I conceive, derive their significance from
the primary.
HERMOGENES: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Very good; but then how do the primary names which precede
analysis show the natures of things, as far as they can be shown; which
they must do, if they are to be real names? And here I will ask you a
question: Suppose that we had no voice or tongue, and wanted to
communicate with one another, should we not, like the deaf and dumb, make
signs with the hands and head and the rest of the body?
HERMOGENES: There would be no choice, Socrates.
SOCRATES: We should imitate the nature of the thing; the elevation of our
hands to heaven would mean lightness and upwardness; heaviness and
downwardness would be expressed by letting them drop to the ground; if we
were describing the running of a horse, or any other animal, we should make
our bodies and their gestures as like as we could to them.
HERMOGENES: I do not see that we could do anything else.
SOCRATES: We could not; for by bodily imitation only can the body ever
express anything.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And when we want to express ourselves, either with the voice, or
tongue, or mouth, the expression is simply their imitation of that which we
want to express.
HERMOGENES: It must be so, I think.
SOCRATES: Then a name is a vocal imitation of that which the vocal
imitator names or imitates?
HERMOGENES: I think so.
SOCRATES: Nay, my friend, I am disposed to think that we have not reached
the truth as yet.
HERMOGENES: Why not?
SOCRATES: Because if we have we shall be obliged to admit that the people
who imitate sheep, or cocks, or other animals, name that which they
imitate.
HERMOGENES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Then could I have been right in what I was saying?
HERMOGENES: In my opinion, no. But I wish that you would tell me,
Socrates, what sort of an imitation is a name?
SOCRATES: In the first place, I should reply, not a musical imitation,
although that is also vocal; nor, again, an imitation of what music
imitates; these, in my judgment, would not be naming. Let me put the
matter as follows: All objects have sound and figure, and many have
colour?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But the art of naming appears not to be concerned with
imitations of this kind; the arts which have to do with them are music and
drawing?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: Again, is there not an essence of each thing, just as there is a
colour, or sound? And is there not an essence of colour and sound as well
as of anything else which may be said to have an essence?
HERMOGENES: I should think so.
SOCRATES: Well, and if any one could express the essence of each thing in
letters and syllables, would he not express the nature of each thing?
HERMOGENES: Quite so.
SOCRATES: The musician and the painter were the two names which you gave
to the two other imitators. What will this imitator be called?
HERMOGENES: I imagine, Socrates, that he must be the namer, or name-giver,
of whom we are in search.
SOCRATES: If this is true, then I think that we are in a condition to
consider the names ron (stream), ienai (to go), schesis (retention), about
which you were asking; and we may see whether the namer has grasped the
nature of them in letters and syllables in such a manner as to imitate the
essence or not.
HERMOGENES: Very good.
SOCRATES: But are these the only primary names, or are there others?
HERMOGENES: There must be others.
SOCRATES: So I should expect. But how shall we further analyse them, and
where does the imitator begin? Imitation of the essence is made by
syllables and letters; ought we not, therefore, first to separate the
letters, just as those who are beginning rhythm first distinguish the
powers of elementary, and then of compound sounds, and when they have done
so, but not before, they proceed to the consideration of rhythms?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Must we not begin in the same way with letters; first separating
the vowels, and then the consonants and mutes (letters which are neither
vowels nor semivowels), into classes, according to the received
distinctions of the learned; also the semivowels, which are neither vowels,
nor yet mutes; and distinguishing into classes the vowels themselves? And
when we have perfected the classification of things, we shall give them
names, and see whether, as in the case of letters, there are any classes to
which they may be all referred (cf. Phaedrus); and hence we shall see their
natures, and see, too, whether they have in them classes as there are in
the letters; and when we have well considered all this, we shall know how
to apply them to what they resemble--whether one letter is used to denote
one thing, or whether there is to be an admixture of several of them; just,
as in painting, the painter who wants to depict anything sometimes uses
purple only, or any other colour, and sometimes mixes up several colours,
as his method is when he has to paint flesh colour or anything of that
kind--he uses his colours as his figures appear to require them; and so,
too, we shall apply letters to the expression of objects, either single
letters when required, or several letters; and so we shall form syllables,
as they are called, and from syllables make nouns and verbs; and thus, at
last, from the combinations of nouns and verbs arrive at language, large
and fair and whole; and as the painter made a figure, even so shall we make
speech by the art of the namer or the rhetorician, or by some other art.
Not that I am literally speaking of ourselves, but I was carried away--
meaning to say that this was the way in which (not we but) the ancients
formed language, and what they put together we must take to pieces in like
manner, if we are to attain a scientific view of the whole subject, and we
must see whether the primary, and also whether the secondary elements are
rightly given or not, for if they are not, the composition of them, my dear
Hermogenes, will be a sorry piece of work, and in the wrong direction.
HERMOGENES: That, Socrates, I can quite believe.
SOCRATES: Well, but do you suppose that you will be able to analyse them
in this way? for I am certain that I should not.
HERMOGENES: Much less am I likely to be able.
SOCRATES: Shall we leave them, then? or shall we seek to discover, if we
can, something about them, according to the measure of our ability, saying
by way of preface, as I said before of the Gods, that of the truth about
them we know nothing, and do but entertain human notions of them. And in
this present enquiry, let us say to ourselves, before we proceed, that the
higher method is the one which we or others who would analyse language to
any good purpose must follow; but under the circumstances, as men say, we
must do as well as we can. What do you think?
HERMOGENES: I very much approve.
SOCRATES: That objects should be imitated in letters and syllables, and so
find expression, may appear ridiculous, Hermogenes, but it cannot be
avoided--there is no better principle to which we can look for the truth of
first names. Deprived of this, we must have recourse to divine help, like
the tragic poets, who in any perplexity have their gods waiting in the air;
and must get out of our difficulty in like fashion, by saying that 'the
Gods gave the first names, and therefore they are right.' This will be the
best contrivance, or perhaps that other notion may be even better still, of
deriving them from some barbarous people, for the barbarians are older than
we are; or we may say that antiquity has cast a veil over them, which is
the same sort of excuse as the last; for all these are not reasons but only
ingenious excuses for having no reasons concerning the truth of words. And
yet any sort of ignorance of first or primitive names involves an ignorance
of secondary words; for they can only be explained by the primary. Clearly
then the professor of languages should be able to give a very lucid
explanation of first names, or let him be assured he will only talk
nonsense about the rest. Do you not suppose this to be true?
HERMOGENES: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: My first notions of original names are truly wild and
ridiculous, though I have no objection to impart them to you if you desire,
and I hope that you will communicate to me in return anything better which
you may have.
HERMOGENES: Fear not; I will do my best.
