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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cratylus, by Plato
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Cratylus
+
+Author: Plato
+
+Translator: B. Jowett
+
+Release Date: January, 1999 [eBook #1616]
+[Most recently updated: April 27, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Sue Asscher
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRATYLUS ***
+
+
+
+
+CRATYLUS
+
+By Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+Contents
+
+ INTRODUCTION
+ CRATYLUS
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The Cratylus has always been a source of perplexity to the student of
+Plato. While in fancy and humour, and perfection of style and
+metaphysical originality, this dialogue may be ranked with the best of
+the Platonic writings, there has been an uncertainty about the motive
+of the piece, which interpreters have hitherto not succeeded in
+dispelling. We need not suppose that Plato used words in order to
+conceal his thoughts, or that he would have been unintelligible to an
+educated contemporary. In the Phaedrus and Euthydemus we also find a
+difficulty in determining the precise aim of the author. Plato wrote
+satires in the form of dialogues, and his meaning, like that of other
+satirical writers, has often slept in the ear of posterity. Two causes
+may be assigned for this obscurity: 1st, the subtlety and allusiveness
+of this species of composition; 2nd, the difficulty of reproducing a
+state of life and literature which has passed away. A satire is
+unmeaning unless we can place ourselves back among the persons and
+thoughts of the age in which it was written. Had the treatise of
+Antisthenes upon words, or the speculations of Cratylus, or some other
+Heracleitean of the fourth century B.C., on the nature of language been
+preserved to us; or if we had lived at the time, and been “rich enough
+to attend the fifty-drachma course of Prodicus,” we should have
+understood Plato better, and many points which are now attributed to
+the extravagance of Socrates’ humour would have been found, like the
+allusions of Aristophanes in the Clouds, to have gone home to the
+sophists and grammarians of the day.
+
+For the age was very busy with philological speculation; and many
+questions were beginning to be asked about language which were parallel
+to other questions about justice, virtue, knowledge, and were
+illustrated in a similar manner by the analogy of the arts. Was there a
+correctness in words, and were they given by nature or convention? In
+the presocratic philosophy mankind had been striving to attain an
+expression of their ideas, and now they were beginning to ask
+themselves whether the expression might not be distinguished from the
+idea? They were also seeking to distinguish the parts of speech and to
+enquire into the relation of subject and predicate. Grammar and logic
+were moving about somewhere in the depths of the human soul, but they
+were not yet awakened into consciousness and had not found names for
+themselves, or terms by which they might be expressed. Of these
+beginnings of the study of language we know little, and there
+necessarily arises an obscurity when the surroundings of such a work as
+the Cratylus are taken away. Moreover, in this, as in most of the
+dialogues of Plato, allowance has to be made for the character of
+Socrates. For the theory of language can only be propounded by him in a
+manner which is consistent with his own profession of ignorance. Hence
+his ridicule of the new school of etymology is interspersed with many
+declarations “that he knows nothing,” “that he has learned from
+Euthyphro,” and the like. Even the truest things which he says are
+depreciated by himself. He professes to be guessing, but the guesses of
+Plato are better than all the other theories of the ancients respecting
+language put together.
+
+The dialogue hardly derives any light from Plato’s other writings, and
+still less from Scholiasts and Neoplatonist writers. Socrates must be
+interpreted from himself, and on first reading we certainly have a
+difficulty in understanding his drift, or his relation to the two other
+interlocutors in the dialogue. Does he agree with Cratylus or with
+Hermogenes, and is he serious in those fanciful etymologies, extending
+over more than half the dialogue, which he seems so greatly to relish?
+Or is he serious in part only; and can we separate his jest from his
+earnest?—_Sunt bona, sunt quaedum mediocria, sunt mala plura_. Most of
+them are ridiculously bad, and yet among them are found, as if by
+accident, principles of philology which are unsurpassed in any ancient
+writer, and even in advance of any philologer of the last century. May
+we suppose that Plato, like Lucian, has been amusing his fancy by
+writing a comedy in the form of a prose dialogue? And what is the final
+result of the enquiry? Is Plato an upholder of the conventional theory
+of language, which he acknowledges to be imperfect? or does he mean to
+imply that a perfect language can only be based on his own theory of
+ideas? Or if this latter explanation is refuted by his silence, then in
+what relation does his account of language stand to the rest of his
+philosophy? Or may we be so bold as to deny the connexion between them?
+(For the allusion to the ideas at the end of the dialogue is merely
+intended to show that we must not put words in the place of things or
+realities, which is a thesis strongly insisted on by Plato in many
+other passages)...These are some of the first thoughts which arise in
+the mind of the reader of the Cratylus. And the consideration of them
+may form a convenient introduction to the general subject of the
+dialogue.
+
+We must not expect all the parts of a dialogue of Plato to tend equally
+to some clearly-defined end. His idea of literary art is not the
+absolute proportion of the whole, such as we appear to find in a Greek
+temple or statue; nor should his works be tried by any such standard.
+They have often the beauty of poetry, but they have also the freedom of
+conversation. “Words are more plastic than wax” (Rep.), and may be
+moulded into any form. He wanders on from one topic to another,
+careless of the unity of his work, not fearing any “judge, or
+spectator, who may recall him to the point” (Theat.), “whither the
+argument blows we follow” (Rep.). To have determined beforehand, as in
+a modern didactic treatise, the nature and limits of the subject, would
+have been fatal to the spirit of enquiry or discovery, which is the
+soul of the dialogue...These remarks are applicable to nearly all the
+works of Plato, but to the Cratylus and Phaedrus more than any others.
+See Phaedrus, Introduction.
+
+There is another aspect under which some of the dialogues of Plato may
+be more truly viewed:—they are dramatic sketches of an argument. We
+have found that in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Protagoras, Meno, we
+arrived at no conclusion—the different sides of the argument were
+personified in the different speakers; but the victory was not
+distinctly attributed to any of them, nor the truth wholly the property
+of any. And in the Cratylus we have no reason to assume that Socrates
+is either wholly right or wholly wrong, or that Plato, though he
+evidently inclines to him, had any other aim than that of personifying,
+in the characters of Hermogenes, Socrates, and Cratylus, the three
+theories of language which are respectively maintained by them.
+
+The two subordinate persons of the dialogue, Hermogenes and Cratylus,
+are at the opposite poles of the argument. But after a while the
+disciple of the Sophist and the follower of Heracleitus are found to be
+not so far removed from one another as at first sight appeared; and
+both show an inclination to accept the third view which Socrates
+interposes between them. First, Hermogenes, the poor brother of the
+rich Callias, expounds the doctrine that names are conventional; like
+the names of slaves, they may be given and altered at pleasure. This is
+one of those principles which, whether applied to society or language,
+explains everything and nothing. For in all things there is an element
+of convention; but the admission of this does not help us to understand
+the rational ground or basis in human nature on which the convention
+proceeds. Socrates first of all intimates to Hermogenes that his view
+of language is only a part of a sophistical whole, and ultimately tends
+to abolish the distinction between truth and falsehood. Hermogenes is
+very ready to throw aside the sophistical tenet, and listens with a
+sort of half admiration, half belief, to the speculations of Socrates.
+
+Cratylus is of opinion that a name is either a true name or not a name
+at all. He is unable to conceive of degrees of imitation; a word is
+either the perfect expression of a thing, or a mere inarticulate sound
+(a fallacy which is still prevalent among theorizers about the origin
+of language). He is at once a philosopher and a sophist; for while
+wanting to rest language on an immutable basis, he would deny the
+possibility of falsehood. He is inclined to derive all truth from
+language, and in language he sees reflected the philosophy of
+Heracleitus. His views are not like those of Hermogenes, hastily taken
+up, but are said to be the result of mature consideration, although he
+is described as still a young man. With a tenacity characteristic of
+the Heracleitean philosophers, he clings to the doctrine of the flux.
+(Compare Theaet.) Of the real Cratylus we know nothing, except that he
+is recorded by Aristotle to have been the friend or teacher of Plato;
+nor have we any proof that he resembled the likeness of him in Plato
+any more than the Critias of Plato is like the real Critias, or the
+Euthyphro in this dialogue like the other Euthyphro, the diviner, in
+the dialogue which is called after him.
+
+Between these two extremes, which have both of them a sophistical
+character, the view of Socrates is introduced, which is in a manner the
+union of the two. Language is conventional and also natural, and the
+true conventional-natural is the rational. It is a work not of chance,
+but of art; the dialectician is the artificer of words, and the
+legislator gives authority to them. They are the expressions or
+imitations in sound of things. In a sense, Cratylus is right in saying
+that things have by nature names; for nature is not opposed either to
+art or to law. But vocal imitation, like any other copy, may be
+imperfectly executed; and in this way an element of chance or
+convention enters in. There is much which is accidental or exceptional
+in language. Some words have had their original meaning so obscured,
+that they require to be helped out by convention. But still the true
+name is that which has a natural meaning. Thus nature, art, chance, all
+combine in the formation of language. And the three views respectively
+propounded by Hermogenes, Socrates, Cratylus, may be described as the
+conventional, the artificial or rational, and the natural. The view of
+Socrates is the meeting-point of the other two, just as conceptualism
+is the meeting-point of nominalism and realism.
+
+We can hardly say that Plato was aware of the truth, that “languages
+are not made, but grow.” But still, when he says that “the legislator
+made language with the dialectician standing on his right hand,” we
+need not infer from this that he conceived words, like coins, to be
+issued from the mint of the State. The creator of laws and of social
+life is naturally regarded as the creator of language, according to
+Hellenic notions, and the philosopher is his natural advisor. We are
+not to suppose that the legislator is performing any extraordinary
+function; he is merely the Eponymus of the State, who prescribes rules
+for the dialectician and for all other artists. According to a truly
+Platonic mode of approaching the subject, language, like virtue in the
+Republic, is examined by the analogy of the arts. Words are works of
+art which may be equally made in different materials, and are well made
+when they have a meaning. Of the process which he thus describes, Plato
+had probably no very definite notion. But he means to express generally
+that language is the product of intelligence, and that languages belong
+to States and not to individuals.
+
+A better conception of language could not have been formed in Plato’s
+age, than that which he attributes to Socrates. Yet many persons have
+thought that the mind of Plato is more truly seen in the vague realism
+of Cratylus. This misconception has probably arisen from two causes:
+first, the desire to bring Plato’s theory of language into accordance
+with the received doctrine of the Platonic ideas; secondly, the
+impression created by Socrates himself, that he is not in earnest, and
+is only indulging the fancy of the hour.
+
+1. We shall have occasion to show more at length, in the Introduction
+to future dialogues, that the so-called Platonic ideas are only a
+semi-mythical form, in which he attempts to realize abstractions, and
+that they are replaced in his later writings by a rational theory of
+psychology. (See introductions to the Meno and the Sophist.) And in the
+Cratylus he gives a general account of the nature and origin of
+language, in which Adam Smith, Rousseau, and other writers of the last
+century, would have substantially agreed. At the end of the dialogue,
+he speaks as in the Symposium and Republic of absolute beauty and good;
+but he never supposed that they were capable of being embodied in
+words. Of the names of the ideas, he would have said, as he says of the
+names of the Gods, that we know nothing. Even the realism of Cratylus
+is not based upon the ideas of Plato, but upon the flux of Heracleitus.
+Here, as in the Sophist and Politicus, Plato expressly draws attention
+to the want of agreement in words and things. Hence we are led to
+infer, that the view of Socrates is not the less Plato’s own, because
+not based upon the ideas; 2nd, that Plato’s theory of language is not
+inconsistent with the rest of his philosophy.
+
+2. We do not deny that Socrates is partly in jest and partly in
+earnest. He is discoursing in a high-flown vein, which may be compared
+to the “dithyrambics of the Phaedrus.” They are mysteries of which he
+is speaking, and he professes a kind of ludicrous fear of his imaginary
+wisdom. When he is arguing out of Homer, about the names of Hector’s
+son, or when he describes himself as inspired or maddened by Euthyphro,
+with whom he has been sitting from the early dawn (compare Phaedrus and
+Lysias; Phaedr.) and expresses his intention of yielding to the
+illusion to-day, and to-morrow he will go to a priest and be purified,
+we easily see that his words are not to be taken seriously. In this
+part of the dialogue his dread of committing impiety, the pretended
+derivation of his wisdom from another, the extravagance of some of his
+etymologies, and, in general, the manner in which the fun, fast and
+furious, _vires acquirit eundo_, remind us strongly of the Phaedrus.
+The jest is a long one, extending over more than half the dialogue. But
+then, we remember that the Euthydemus is a still longer jest, in which
+the irony is preserved to the very end. There he is parodying the
+ingenious follies of early logic; in the Cratylus he is ridiculing the
+fancies of a new school of sophists and grammarians. The fallacies of
+the Euthydemus are still retained at the end of our logic books; and
+the etymologies of the Cratylus have also found their way into later
+writers. Some of these are not much worse than the conjectures of
+Hemsterhuis, and other critics of the last century; but this does not
+prove that they are serious. For Plato is in advance of his age in his
+conception of language, as much as he is in his conception of
+mythology. (Compare Phaedrus.)
+
+When the fervour of his etymological enthusiasm has abated, Socrates
+ends, as he has begun, with a rational explanation of language. Still
+he preserves his “know nothing” disguise, and himself declares his
+first notions about names to be reckless and ridiculous. Having
+explained compound words by resolving them into their original
+elements, he now proceeds to analyse simple words into the letters of
+which they are composed. The Socrates who “knows nothing,” here passes
+into the teacher, the dialectician, the arranger of species. There is
+nothing in this part of the dialogue which is either weak or
+extravagant. Plato is a supporter of the Onomatopoetic theory of
+language; that is to say, he supposes words to be formed by the
+imitation of ideas in sounds; he also recognises the effect of time,
+the influence of foreign languages, the desire of euphony, to be
+formative principles; and he admits a certain element of chance. But he
+gives no imitation in all this that he is preparing the way for the
+construction of an ideal language. Or that he has any Eleatic
+speculation to oppose to the Heracleiteanism of Cratylus.
+
+The theory of language which is propounded in the Cratylus is in
+accordance with the later phase of the philosophy of Plato, and would
+have been regarded by him as in the main true. The dialogue is also a
+satire on the philological fancies of the day. Socrates in pursuit of
+his vocation as a detector of false knowledge, lights by accident on
+the truth. He is guessing, he is dreaming; he has heard, as he says in
+the Phaedrus, from another: no one is more surprised than himself at
+his own discoveries. And yet some of his best remarks, as for example
+his view of the derivation of Greek words from other languages, or of
+the permutations of letters, or again, his observation that in speaking
+of the Gods we are only speaking of our names of them, occur among
+these flights of humour.
+
+We can imagine a character having a profound insight into the nature of
+men and things, and yet hardly dwelling upon them seriously; blending
+inextricably sense and nonsense; sometimes enveloping in a blaze of
+jests the most serious matters, and then again allowing the truth to
+peer through; enjoying the flow of his own humour, and puzzling mankind
+by an ironical exaggeration of their absurdities. Such were
+Aristophanes and Rabelais; such, in a different style, were Sterne,
+Jean Paul, Hamann,—writers who sometimes become unintelligible through
+the extravagance of their fancies. Such is the character which Plato
+intends to depict in some of his dialogues as the Silenus Socrates; and
+through this medium we have to receive our theory of language.
+
+There remains a difficulty which seems to demand a more exact answer:
+In what relation does the satirical or etymological portion of the
+dialogue stand to the serious? Granting all that can be said about the
+provoking irony of Socrates, about the parody of Euthyphro, or
+Prodicus, or Antisthenes, how does the long catalogue of etymologies
+furnish any answer to the question of Hermogenes, which is evidently
+the main thesis of the dialogue: What is the truth, or correctness, or
+principle of names?
+
+After illustrating the nature of correctness by the analogy of the
+arts, and then, as in the Republic, ironically appealing to the
+authority of the Homeric poems, Socrates shows that the truth or
+correctness of names can only be ascertained by an appeal to etymology.
+The truth of names is to be found in the analysis of their elements.
+But why does he admit etymologies which are absurd, based on
+Heracleitean fancies, fourfold interpretations of words, impossible
+unions and separations of syllables and letters?
+
+1. The answer to this difficulty has been already anticipated in part:
+Socrates is not a dogmatic teacher, and therefore he puts on this wild
+and fanciful disguise, in order that the truth may be permitted to
+appear: 2. as Benfey remarks, an erroneous example may illustrate a
+principle of language as well as a true one: 3. many of these
+etymologies, as, for example, that of dikaion, are indicated, by the
+manner in which Socrates speaks of them, to have been current in his
+own age: 4. the philosophy of language had not made such progress as
+would have justified Plato in propounding real derivations. Like his
+master Socrates, he saw through the hollowness of the incipient
+sciences of the day, and tries to move in a circle apart from them,
+laying down the conditions under which they are to be pursued, but, as
+in the Timaeus, cautious and tentative, when he is speaking of actual
+phenomena. To have made etymologies seriously, would have seemed to him
+like the interpretation of the myths in the Phaedrus, the task “of a
+not very fortunate individual, who had a great deal of time on his
+hands.” The irony of Socrates places him above and beyond the errors of
+his contemporaries.
+
+The Cratylus is full of humour and satirical touches: the inspiration
+which comes from Euthyphro, and his prancing steeds, the light
+admixture of quotations from Homer, and the spurious dialectic which is
+applied to them; the jest about the fifty-drachma course of Prodicus,
+which is declared on the best authority, viz. his own, to be a complete
+education in grammar and rhetoric; the double explanation of the name
+Hermogenes, either as “not being in luck,” or “being no speaker;” the
+dearly-bought wisdom of Callias, the Lacedaemonian whose name was
+“Rush,” and, above all, the pleasure which Socrates expresses in his
+own dangerous discoveries, which “to-morrow he will purge away,” are
+truly humorous. While delivering a lecture on the philosophy of
+language, Socrates is also satirizing the endless fertility of the
+human mind in spinning arguments out of nothing, and employing the most
+trifling and fanciful analogies in support of a theory. Etymology in
+ancient as in modern times was a favourite recreation; and Socrates
+makes merry at the expense of the etymologists. The simplicity of
+Hermogenes, who is ready to believe anything that he is told, heightens
+the effect. Socrates in his genial and ironical mood hits right and
+left at his adversaries: Ouranos is so called apo tou oran ta ano,
+which, as some philosophers say, is the way to have a pure mind; the
+sophists are by a fanciful explanation converted into heroes; “the
+givers of names were like some philosophers who fancy that the earth
+goes round because their heads are always going round.” There is a
+great deal of “mischief” lurking in the following: “I found myself in
+greater perplexity about justice than I was before I began to learn;”
+“The rho in katoptron must be the addition of some one who cares
+nothing about truth, but thinks only of putting the mouth into shape;”
+“Tales and falsehoods have generally to do with the Tragic and goatish
+life, and tragedy is the place of them.” Several philosophers and
+sophists are mentioned by name: first, Protagoras and Euthydemus are
+assailed; then the interpreters of Homer, oi palaioi Omerikoi (compare
+Arist. Met.) and the Orphic poets are alluded to by the way; then he
+discovers a hive of wisdom in the philosophy of Heracleitus;—the
+doctrine of the flux is contained in the word ousia (= osia the pushing
+principle), an anticipation of Anaxagoras is found in psuche and
+selene. Again, he ridicules the arbitrary methods of pulling out and
+putting in letters which were in vogue among the philologers of his
+time; or slightly scoffs at contemporary religious beliefs. Lastly, he
+is impatient of hearing from the half-converted Cratylus the doctrine
+that falsehood can neither be spoken, nor uttered, nor addressed; a
+piece of sophistry attributed to Gorgias, which reappears in the
+Sophist. And he proceeds to demolish, with no less delight than he had
+set up, the Heracleitean theory of language.
+
+In the latter part of the dialogue Socrates becomes more serious,
+though he does not lay aside but rather aggravates his banter of the
+Heracleiteans, whom here, as in the Theaetetus, he delights to
+ridicule. What was the origin of this enmity we can hardly
+determine:—was it due to the natural dislike which may be supposed to
+exist between the “patrons of the flux” and the “friends of the ideas”
+(Soph.)? or is it to be attributed to the indignation which Plato felt
+at having wasted his time upon “Cratylus and the doctrines of
+Heracleitus” in the days of his youth? Socrates, touching on some of
+the characteristic difficulties of early Greek philosophy, endeavours
+to show Cratylus that imitation may be partial or imperfect, that a
+knowledge of things is higher than a knowledge of names, and that there
+can be no knowledge if all things are in a state of transition. But
+Cratylus, who does not easily apprehend the argument from common sense,
+remains unconvinced, and on the whole inclines to his former opinion.
+Some profound philosophical remarks are scattered up and down,
+admitting of an application not only to language but to knowledge
+generally; such as the assertion that “consistency is no test of
+truth:” or again, “If we are over-precise about words, truth will say
+‘too late’ to us as to the belated traveller in Aegina.”
+
+The place of the dialogue in the series cannot be determined with
+certainty. The style and subject, and the treatment of the character of
+Socrates, have a close resemblance to the earlier dialogues, especially
+to the Phaedrus and Euthydemus. The manner in which the ideas are
+spoken of at the end of the dialogue, also indicates a comparatively
+early date. The imaginative element is still in full vigour; the
+Socrates of the Cratylus is the Socrates of the Apology and Symposium,
+not yet Platonized; and he describes, as in the Theaetetus, the
+philosophy of Heracleitus by “unsavoury” similes—he cannot believe that
+the world is like “a leaky vessel,” or “a man who has a running at the
+nose”; he attributes the flux of the world to the swimming in some
+folks’ heads. On the other hand, the relation of thought to language is
+omitted here, but is treated of in the Sophist. These grounds are not
+sufficient to enable us to arrive at a precise conclusion. But we shall
+not be far wrong in placing the Cratylus about the middle, or at any
+rate in the first half, of the series.
+
+Cratylus, the Heracleitean philosopher, and Hermogenes, the brother of
+Callias, have been arguing about names; the former maintaining that
+they are natural, the latter that they are conventional. Cratylus
+affirms that his own is a true name, but will not allow that the name
+of Hermogenes is equally true. Hermogenes asks Socrates to explain to
+him what Cratylus means; or, far rather, he would like to know, What
+Socrates himself thinks about the truth or correctness of names?
+Socrates replies, that hard is knowledge, and the nature of names is a
+considerable part of knowledge: he has never been to hear the
+fifty-drachma course of Prodicus; and having only attended the
+single-drachma course, he is not competent to give an opinion on such
+matters. When Cratylus denies that Hermogenes is a true name, he
+supposes him to mean that he is not a true son of Hermes, because he is
+never in luck. But he would like to have an open council and to hear
+both sides.
+
+Hermogenes is of opinion that there is no principle in names; they may
+be changed, as we change the names of slaves, whenever we please, and
+the altered name is as good as the original one.
+
+You mean to say, for instance, rejoins Socrates, that if I agree to
+call a man a horse, then a man will be rightly called a horse by me,
+and a man by the rest of the world? But, surely, there is in words a
+true and a false, as there are true and false propositions. If a whole
+proposition be true or false, then the parts of a proposition may be
+true or false, and the least parts as well as the greatest; and the
+least parts are names, and therefore names may be true or false. Would
+Hermogenes maintain that anybody may give a name to anything, and as
+many names as he pleases; and would all these names be always true at
+the time of giving them? Hermogenes replies that this is the only way
+in which he can conceive that names are correct; and he appeals to the
+practice of different nations, and of the different Hellenic tribes, in
+confirmation of his view. Socrates asks, whether the things differ as
+the words which represent them differ:—Are we to maintain with
+Protagoras, that what appears is? Hermogenes has always been puzzled
+about this, but acknowledges, when he is pressed by Socrates, that
+there are a few very good men in the world, and a great many very bad;
+and the very good are the wise, and the very bad are the foolish; and
+this is not mere appearance but reality. Nor is he disposed to say with
+Euthydemus, that all things equally and always belong to all men; in
+that case, again, there would be no distinction between bad and good
+men. But then, the only remaining possibility is, that all things have
+their several distinct natures, and are independent of our notions
+about them. And not only things, but actions, have distinct natures,
+and are done by different processes. There is a natural way of cutting
+or burning, and a natural instrument with which men cut or burn, and
+any other way will fail;—this is true of all actions. And speaking is a
+kind of action, and naming is a kind of speaking, and we must name
+according to a natural process, and with a proper instrument. We cut
+with a knife, we pierce with an awl, we weave with a shuttle, we name
+with a name. And as a shuttle separates the warp from the woof, so a
+name distinguishes the natures of things. The weaver will use the
+shuttle well,—that is, like a weaver; and the teacher will use the name
+well,—that is, like a teacher. The shuttle will be made by the
+carpenter; the awl by the smith or skilled person. But who makes a
+name? Does not the law give names, and does not the teacher receive
+them from the legislator? He is the skilled person who makes them, and
+of all skilled workmen he is the rarest. But how does the carpenter
+make or repair the shuttle, and to what will he look? Will he not look
+at the ideal which he has in his mind? And as the different kinds of
+work differ, so ought the instruments which make them to differ. The
+several kinds of shuttles ought to answer in material and form to the
+several kinds of webs. And the legislator ought to know the different
+materials and forms of which names are made in Hellas and other
+countries. But who is to be the judge of the proper form? The judge of
+shuttles is the weaver who uses them; the judge of lyres is the player
+of the lyre; the judge of ships is the pilot. And will not the judge
+who is able to direct the legislator in his work of naming, be he who
+knows how to use the names—he who can ask and answer questions—in
+short, the dialectician? The pilot directs the carpenter how to make
+the rudder, and the dialectician directs the legislator how he is to
+impose names; for to express the ideal forms of things in syllables and
+letters is not the easy task, Hermogenes, which you imagine.
+
+“I should be more readily persuaded, if you would show me this natural
+correctness of names.”
+
+Indeed I cannot; but I see that you have advanced; for you now admit
+that there is a correctness of names, and that not every one can give a
+name. But what is the nature of this correctness or truth, you must
+learn from the Sophists, of whom your brother Callias has bought his
+reputation for wisdom rather dearly; and since they require to be paid,
+you, having no money, had better learn from him at second-hand. “Well,
+but I have just given up Protagoras, and I should be inconsistent in
+going to learn of him.” Then if you reject him you may learn of the
+poets, and in particular of Homer, who distinguishes the names given by
+Gods and men to the same things, as in the verse about the river God
+who fought with Hephaestus, “whom the Gods call Xanthus, and men call
+Scamander;” or in the lines in which he mentions the bird which the
+Gods call “Chalcis,” and men “Cymindis;” or the hill which men call
+“Batieia,” and the Gods “Myrinna’s Tomb.” Here is an important lesson;
+for the Gods must of course be right in their use of names. And this is
+not the only truth about philology which may be learnt from Homer. Does
+he not say that Hector’s son had two names—
+
+“Hector called him Scamandrius, but the others Astyanax”?
+
+Now, if the men called him Astyanax, is it not probable that the other
+name was conferred by the women? And which are more likely to be
+right—the wiser or the less wise, the men or the women? Homer evidently
+agreed with the men: and of the name given by them he offers an
+explanation;—the boy was called Astyanax (“king of the city”), because
+his father saved the city. The names Astyanax and Hector, moreover, are
+really the same,—the one means a king, and the other is “a holder or
+possessor.” For as the lion’s whelp may be called a lion, or the
+horse’s foal a foal, so the son of a king may be called a king. But if
+the horse had produced a calf, then that would be called a calf.
+Whether the syllables of a name are the same or not makes no
+difference, provided the meaning is retained. For example; the names of
+letters, whether vowels or consonants, do not correspond to their
+sounds, with the exception of epsilon, upsilon, omicron, omega. The
+name Beta has three letters added to the sound—and yet this does not
+alter the sense of the word, or prevent the whole name having the value
+which the legislator intended. And the same may be said of a king and
+the son of a king, who like other animals resemble each other in the
+course of nature; the words by which they are signified may be
+disguised, and yet amid differences of sound the etymologist may
+recognise the same notion, just as the physician recognises the power
+of the same drugs under different disguises of colour and smell. Hector
+and Astyanax have only one letter alike, but they have the same
+meaning; and Agis (leader) is altogether different in sound from
+Polemarchus (chief in war), or Eupolemus (good warrior); but the two
+words present the same idea of leader or general, like the words
+Iatrocles and Acesimbrotus, which equally denote a physician. The son
+succeeds the father as the foal succeeds the horse, but when, out of
+the course of nature, a prodigy occurs, and the offspring no longer
+resembles the parent, then the names no longer agree. This may be
+illustrated by the case of Agamemnon and his son Orestes, of whom the
+former has a name significant of his patience at the siege of Troy;
+while the name of the latter indicates his savage, man-of-the-mountain
+nature. Atreus again, for his murder of Chrysippus, and his cruelty to
+Thyestes, is rightly named Atreus, which, to the eye of the
+etymologist, is ateros (destructive), ateires (stubborn), atreotos
+(fearless); and Pelops is o ta pelas oron (he who sees what is near
+only), because in his eagerness to win Hippodamia, he was unconscious
+of the remoter consequences which the murder of Myrtilus would entail
+upon his race. The name Tantalus, if slightly changed, offers two
+etymologies; either apo tes tou lithou talanteias, or apo tou
+talantaton einai, signifying at once the hanging of the stone over his
+head in the world below, and the misery which he brought upon his
+country. And the name of his father, Zeus, Dios, Zenos, has an
+excellent meaning, though hard to be understood, because really a
+sentence which is divided into two parts (Zeus, Dios). For he, being
+the lord and king of all, is the author of our being, and in him all
+live: this is implied in the double form, Dios, Zenos, which being put
+together and interpreted is di on ze panta. There may, at first sight,
+appear to be some irreverence in calling him the son of Cronos, who is
+a proverb for stupidity; but the meaning is that Zeus himself is the
+son of a mighty intellect; Kronos, quasi koros, not in the sense of a
+youth, but quasi to katharon kai akeraton tou nou—the pure and
+garnished mind, which in turn is begotten of Uranus, who is so called
+apo tou oran ta ano, from looking upwards; which, as philosophers say,
+is the way to have a pure mind. The earlier portion of Hesiod’s
+genealogy has escaped my memory, or I would try more conclusions of the
+same sort. “You talk like an oracle.” I caught the infection from
+Euthyphro, who gave me a long lecture which began at dawn, and has not
+only entered into my ears, but filled my soul, and my intention is to
+yield to the inspiration to-day; and to-morrow I will be exorcised by
+some priest or sophist. “Go on; I am anxious to hear the rest.” Now
+that we have a general notion, how shall we proceed? What names will
+afford the most crucial test of natural fitness? Those of heroes and
+ordinary men are often deceptive, because they are patronymics or
+expressions of a wish; let us try gods and demi-gods. Gods are so
+called, apo tou thein, from the verb “to run;” because the sun, moon,
+and stars run about the heaven; and they being the original gods of the
+Hellenes, as they still are of the Barbarians, their name is given to
+all Gods. The demons are the golden race of Hesiod, and by golden he
+means not literally golden, but good; and they are called demons, quasi
+daemones, which in old Attic was used for daimones—good men are well
+said to become daimones when they die, because they are knowing. Eros
+(with an epsilon) is the same word as eros (with an eta): “the sons of
+God saw the daughters of men that they were fair;” or perhaps they were
+a species of sophists or rhetoricians, and so called apo tou erotan, or
+eirein, from their habit of spinning questions; for eirein is
+equivalent to legein. I get all this from Euthyphro; and now a new and
+ingenious idea comes into my mind, and, if I am not careful, I shall be
+wiser than I ought to be by to-morrow’s dawn. My idea is, that we may
+put in and pull out letters at pleasure and alter the accents (as, for
+example, Dii philos may be turned into Diphilos), and we may make words
+into sentences and sentences into words. The name anthrotos is a case
+in point, for a letter has been omitted and the accent changed; the
+original meaning being o anathron a opopen—he who looks up at what he
+sees. Psuche may be thought to be the reviving, or refreshing, or
+animating principle—e anapsuchousa to soma; but I am afraid that
+Euthyphro and his disciples will scorn this derivation, and I must find
+another: shall we identify the soul with the “ordering mind” of
+Anaxagoras, and say that psuche, quasi phuseche = e phusin echei or
+ochei?—this might easily be refined into psyche. “That is a more
+artistic etymology.”
+
+After psuche follows soma; this, by a slight permutation, may be either
+= (1) the “grave” of the soul, or (2) may mean “that by which the soul
+signifies (semainei) her wishes.” But more probably, the word is
+Orphic, and simply denotes that the body is the place of ward in which
+the soul suffers the penalty of sin,—en o sozetai. “I should like to
+hear some more explanations of the names of the Gods, like that
+excellent one of Zeus.” The truest names of the Gods are those which
+they give themselves; but these are unknown to us. Less true are those
+by which we propitiate them, as men say in prayers, “May he graciously
+receive any name by which I call him.” And to avoid offence, I should
+like to let them know beforehand that we are not presuming to enquire
+about them, but only about the names which they usually bear. Let us
+begin with Hestia. What did he mean who gave the name Hestia? “That is
+a very difficult question.” O, my dear Hermogenes, I believe that there
+was a power of philosophy and talk among the first inventors of names,
+both in our own and in other languages; for even in foreign words a
+principle is discernible. Hestia is the same with esia, which is an old
+form of ousia, and means the first principle of things: this agrees
+with the fact that to Hestia the first sacrifices are offered. There is
+also another reading—osia, which implies that “pushing” (othoun) is the
+first principle of all things. And here I seem to discover a delicate
+allusion to the flux of Heracleitus—that antediluvian philosopher who
+cannot walk twice in the same stream; and this flux of his may
+accomplish yet greater marvels. For the names Cronos and Rhea cannot
+have been accidental; the giver of them must have known something about
+the doctrine of Heracleitus. Moreover, there is a remarkable
+coincidence in the words of Hesiod, when he speaks of Oceanus, “the
+origin of Gods;” and in the verse of Orpheus, in which he describes
+Oceanus espousing his sister Tethys. Tethys is nothing more than the
+name of a spring—to diattomenon kai ethoumenon. Poseidon is posidesmos,
+the chain of the feet, because you cannot walk on the sea—the epsilon
+is inserted by way of ornament; or perhaps the name may have been
+originally polleidon, meaning, that the God knew many things (polla
+eidos): he may also be the shaker, apo tou seiein,—in this case, pi and
+delta have been added. Pluto is connected with ploutos, because wealth
+comes out of the earth; or the word may be a euphemism for Hades, which
+is usually derived apo tou aeidous, because the God is concerned with
+the invisible. But the name Hades was really given him from his knowing
+(eidenai) all good things. Men in general are foolishly afraid of him,
+and talk with horror of the world below from which no one may return.
+The reason why his subjects never wish to come back, even if they
+could, is that the God enchains them by the strongest of spells, namely
+by the desire of virtue, which they hope to obtain by constant
+association with him. He is the perfect and accomplished Sophist and
+the great benefactor of the other world; for he has much more than he
+wants there, and hence he is called Pluto or the rich. He will have
+nothing to do with the souls of men while in the body, because he
+cannot work his will with them so long as they are confused and
+entangled by fleshly lusts. Demeter is the mother and giver of food—e
+didousa meter tes edodes. Here is erate tis, or perhaps the legislator
+may have been thinking of the weather, and has merely transposed the
+letters of the word aer. Pherephatta, that word of awe, is pheretapha,
+which is only an euphonious contraction of e tou pheromenou
+ephaptomene,—all things are in motion, and she in her wisdom moves with
+them, and the wise God Hades consorts with her—there is nothing very
+terrible in this, any more than in the her other appellation
+Persephone, which is also significant of her wisdom (sophe). Apollo is
+another name, which is supposed to have some dreadful meaning, but is
+susceptible of at least four perfectly innocent explanations. First, he
+is the purifier or purger or absolver (apolouon); secondly, he is the
+true diviner, Aplos, as he is called in the Thessalian dialect (aplos =
+aplous, sincere); thirdly, he is the archer (aei ballon), always
+shooting; or again, supposing alpha to mean ama or omou, Apollo becomes
+equivalent to ama polon, which points to both his musical and his
+heavenly attributes; for there is a “moving together” alike in music
+and in the harmony of the spheres. The second lambda is inserted in
+order to avoid the ill-omened sound of destruction. The Muses are so
+called—apo tou mosthai. The gentle Leto or Letho is named from her
+willingness (ethelemon), or because she is ready to forgive and forget
+(lethe). Artemis is so called from her healthy well-balanced nature,
+dia to artemes, or as aretes istor; or as a lover of virginity, aroton
+misesasa. One of these explanations is probably true,—perhaps all of
+them. Dionysus is o didous ton oinon, and oinos is quasi oionous
+because wine makes those think (oiesthai) that they have a mind (nous)
+who have none. The established derivation of Aphrodite dia ten tou
+athrou genesin may be accepted on the authority of Hesiod. Again, there
+is the name of Pallas, or Athene, which we, who are Athenians, must not
+forget. Pallas is derived from armed dances—apo tou pallein ta opla.
+For Athene we must turn to the allegorical interpreters of Homer, who
+make the name equivalent to theonoe, or possibly the word was
+originally ethonoe and signified moral intelligence (en ethei noesis).
+Hephaestus, again, is the lord of light—o tou phaeos istor. This is a
+good notion; and, to prevent any other getting into our heads, let us
+go on to Ares. He is the manly one (arren), or the unchangeable one
+(arratos). Enough of the Gods; for, by the Gods, I am afraid of them;
+but if you suggest other words, you will see how the horses of
+Euthyphro prance. “Only one more God; tell me about my godfather
+Hermes.” He is ermeneus, the messenger or cheater or thief or
+bargainer; or o eirein momenos, that is, eiremes or ermes—the speaker
+or contriver of speeches. “Well said Cratylus, then, that I am no son
+of Hermes.” Pan, as the son of Hermes, is speech or the brother of
+speech, and is called Pan because speech indicates everything—o pan
+menuon. He has two forms, a true and a false; and is in the upper part
+smooth, and in the lower part shaggy. He is the goat of Tragedy, in
+which there are plenty of falsehoods.
+
+“Will you go on to the elements—sun, moon, stars, earth, aether, air,
+fire, water, seasons, years?” Very good: and which shall I take first?
+Let us begin with elios, or the sun. The Doric form elios helps us to
+see that he is so called because at his rising he gathers (alizei) men
+together, or because he rolls about (eilei) the earth, or because he
+variegates (aiolei = poikillei) the earth. Selene is an anticipation of
+Anaxagoras, being a contraction of selaenoneoaeia, the light (selas)
+which is ever old and new, and which, as Anaxagoras says, is borrowed
+from the sun; the name was harmonized into selanaia, a form which is
+still in use. “That is a true dithyrambic name.” Meis is so called apo
+tou meiousthai, from suffering diminution, and astron is from astrape
+(lightning), which is an improvement of anastrope, that which turns the
+eyes inside out. “How do you explain pur n udor?” I suspect that pur,
+which, like udor n kuon, is found in Phrygian, is a foreign word; for
+the Hellenes have borrowed much from the barbarians, and I always
+resort to this theory of a foreign origin when I am at a loss. Aer may
+be explained, oti airei ta apo tes ges; or, oti aei rei; or, oti pneuma
+ex autou ginetai (compare the poetic word aetai). So aither quasi
+aeitheer oti aei thei peri ton aera: ge, gaia quasi genneteira (compare
+the Homeric form gegaasi); ora (with an omega), or, according to the
+old Attic form ora (with an omicron), is derived apo tou orizein,
+because it divides the year; eniautos and etos are the same thought—o
+en eauto etazon, cut into two parts, en eauto and etazon, like di on ze
+into Dios and Zenos.
+
+“You make surprising progress.” True; I am run away with, and am not
+even yet at my utmost speed. “I should like very much to hear your
+account of the virtues. What principle of correctness is there in those
+charming words, wisdom, understanding, justice, and the rest?” To
+explain all that will be a serious business; still, as I have put on
+the lion’s skin, appearances must be maintained. My opinion is, that
+primitive men were like some modern philosophers, who, by always going
+round in their search after the nature of things, become dizzy; and
+this phenomenon, which was really in themselves, they imagined to take
+place in the external world. You have no doubt remarked, that the
+doctrine of the universal flux, or generation of things, is indicated
+in names. “No, I never did.” Phronesis is only phoras kai rou noesis,
+or perhaps phoras onesis, and in any case is connected with pheresthai;
+gnome is gones skepsis kai nomesis; noesis is neou or gignomenon esis;
+the word neos implies that creation is always going on—the original
+form was neoesis; sophrosune is soteria phroneseos; episteme is e
+epomene tois pragmasin—the faculty which keeps close, neither
+anticipating nor lagging behind; sunesis is equivalent to sunienai,
+sumporeuesthai ten psuche, and is a kind of conclusion—sullogismos tis,
+akin therefore in idea to episteme; sophia is very difficult, and has a
+foreign look—the meaning is, touching the motion or stream of things,
+and may be illustrated by the poetical esuthe and the Lacedaemonian
+proper name Sous, or Rush; agathon is ro agaston en te tachuteti,—for
+all things are in motion, and some are swifter than others: dikaiosune
+is clearly e tou dikaiou sunesis. The word dikaion is more troublesome,
+and appears to mean the subtle penetrating power which, as the lovers
+of motion say, preserves all things, and is the cause of all things,
+quasi diaion going through—the letter kappa being inserted for the sake
+of euphony. This is a great mystery which has been confided to me; but
+when I ask for an explanation I am thought obtrusive, and another
+derivation is proposed to me. Justice is said to be o kaion, or the
+sun; and when I joyfully repeat this beautiful notion, I am answered,
+“What, is there no justice when the sun is down?” And when I entreat my
+questioner to tell me his own opinion, he replies, that justice is fire
+in the abstract, or heat in the abstract; which is not very
+intelligible. Others laugh at such notions, and say with Anaxagoras,
+that justice is the ordering mind. “I think that some one must have
+told you this.” And not the rest? Let me proceed then, in the hope of
+proving to you my originality. Andreia is quasi anpeia quasi e ano roe,
+the stream which flows upwards, and is opposed to injustice, which
+clearly hinders the principle of penetration; arren and aner have a
+similar derivation; gune is the same as gone; thelu is derived apo tes
+theles, because the teat makes things flourish (tethelenai), and the
+word thallein itself implies increase of youth, which is swift and
+sudden ever (thein and allesthai). I am getting over the ground fast:
+but much has still to be explained. There is techne, for instance.
+This, by an aphaeresis of tau and an epenthesis of omicron in two
+places, may be identified with echonoe, and signifies “that which has
+mind.”
+
+“A very poor etymology.” Yes; but you must remember that all language
+is in process of change; letters are taken in and put out for the sake
+of euphony, and time is also a great alterer of words. For example,
+what business has the letter rho in the word katoptron, or the letter
+sigma in the word sphigx? The additions are often such that it is
+impossible to make out the original word; and yet, if you may put in
+and pull out, as you like, any name is equally good for any object. The
+fact is, that great dictators of literature like yourself should
+observe the rules of moderation. “I will do my best.” But do not be too
+much of a precisian, or you will paralyze me. If you will let me add
+mechane, apo tou mekous, which means polu, and anein, I shall be at the
+summit of my powers, from which elevation I will examine the two words
+kakia and arete. The first is easily explained in accordance with what
+has preceded; for all things being in a flux, kakia is to kakos ion.
+This derivation is illustrated by the word deilia, which ought to have
+come after andreia, and may be regarded as o lian desmos tes psuches,
+just as aporia signifies an impediment to motion (from alpha not, and
+poreuesthai to go), and arete is euporia, which is the opposite of
+this—the everflowing (aei reousa or aeireite), or the eligible, quasi
+airete. You will think that I am inventing, but I say that if kakia is
+right, then arete is also right. But what is kakon? That is a very
+obscure word, to which I can only apply my old notion and declare that
+kakon is a foreign word. Next, let us proceed to kalon, aischron. The
+latter is doubtless contracted from aeischoroun, quasi aei ischon roun.
+The inventor of words being a patron of the flux, was a great enemy to
+stagnation. Kalon is to kaloun ta pragmata—this is mind (nous or
+dianoia); which is also the principle of beauty; and which doing the
+works of beauty, is therefore rightly called the beautiful. The meaning
+of sumpheron is explained by previous examples;—like episteme,
+signifying that the soul moves in harmony with the world (sumphora,
+sumpheronta). Kerdos is to pasi kerannumenon—that which mingles with
+all things: lusiteloun is equivalent to to tes phoras luon to telos,
+and is not to be taken in the vulgar sense of gainful, but rather in
+that of swift, being the principle which makes motion immortal and
+unceasing; ophelimon is apo tou ophellein—that which gives increase:
+this word, which is Homeric, is of foreign origin. Blaberon is to
+blamton or boulomenon aptein tou rou—that which injures or seeks to
+bind the stream. The proper word would be boulapteroun, but this is too
+much of a mouthful—like a prelude on the flute in honour of Athene. The
+word zemiodes is difficult; great changes, as I was saying, have been
+made in words, and even a small change will alter their meaning very
+much. The word deon is one of these disguised words. You know that
+according to the old pronunciation, which is especially affected by the
+women, who are great conservatives, iota and delta were used where we
+should now use eta and zeta: for example, what we now call emera was
+formerly called imera; and this shows the meaning of the word to have
+been “the desired one coming after night,” and not, as is often
+supposed, “that which makes things gentle” (emera). So again, zugon is
+duogon, quasi desis duein eis agogen—(the binding of two together for
+the purpose of drawing.) Deon, as ordinarily written, has an evil
+sense, signifying the chain (desmos) or hindrance of motion; but in its
+ancient form dion is expressive of good, quasi diion, that which
+penetrates or goes through all. Zemiodes is really demiodes, and means
+that which binds motion (dounti to ion): edone is e pros ten onrsin
+teinousa praxis—the delta is an insertion: lupe is derived apo tes
+dialuseos tou somatos: ania is from alpha and ienai, to go: algedon is
+a foreign word, and is so called apo tou algeinou: odune is apo tes
+enduseos tes lupes: achthedon is in its very sound a burden: chapa
+expresses the flow of soul: terpsis is apo tou terpnou, and terpnon is
+properly erpnon, because the sensation of pleasure is likened to a
+breath (pnoe) which creeps (erpei) through the soul: euphrosune is
+named from pheresthai, because the soul moves in harmony with nature:
+epithumia is e epi ton thumon iousa dunamis: thumos is apo tes thuseos
+tes psuches: imeros—oti eimenos pei e psuche: pothos, the desire which
+is in another place, allothi pou: eros was anciently esros, and so
+called because it flows into (esrei) the soul from without: doxa is e
+dioxis tou eidenai, or expresses the shooting from a bow (toxon). The
+latter etymology is confirmed by the words boulesthai, boule, aboulia,
+which all have to do with shooting (bole): and similarly oiesis is
+nothing but the movement (oisis) of the soul towards essence. Ekousion
+is to eikon—the yielding—anagke is e an agke iousa, the passage through
+ravines which impede motion: aletheia is theia ale, divine motion.
+Pseudos is the opposite of this, implying the principle of constraint
+and forced repose, which is expressed under the figure of sleep, to
+eudon; the psi is an addition. Onoma, a name, affirms the real
+existence of that which is sought after—on ou masma estin. On and ousia
+are only ion with an iota broken off; and ouk on is ouk ion. “And what
+are ion, reon, doun?” One way of explaining them has been already
+suggested—they may be of foreign origin; and possibly this is the true
+answer. But mere antiquity may often prevent our recognizing words,
+after all the complications which they have undergone; and we must
+remember that however far we carry back our analysis some ultimate
+elements or roots will remain which can be no further analyzed. For
+example; the word agathos was supposed by us to be a compound of
+agastos and thoos, and probably thoos may be further resolvable. But if
+we take a word of which no further resolution seems attainable, we may
+fairly conclude that we have reached one of these original elements,
+and the truth of such a word must be tested by some new method. Will
+you help me in the search?
+
+All names, whether primary or secondary, are intended to show the
+nature of things; and the secondary, as I conceive, derive their
+significance from the primary. But then, how do the primary names
+indicate anything? And let me ask another question,—If we had no
+faculty of speech, how should we communicate with one another? Should
+we not use signs, like the deaf and dumb? The elevation of our hands
+would mean lightness—heaviness would be expressed by letting them drop.
+The running of any animal would be described by a similar movement of
+our own frames. The body can only express anything by imitation; and
+the tongue or mouth can imitate as well as the rest of the body. But
+this imitation of the tongue or voice is not yet a name, because people
+may imitate sheep or goats without naming them. What, then, is a name?
+In the first place, a name is not a musical, or, secondly, a pictorial
+imitation, but an imitation of that kind which expresses the nature of
+a thing; and is the invention not of a musician, or of a painter, but
+of a namer.
+
+And now, I think that we may consider the names about which you were
+asking. The way to analyze them will be by going back to the letters,
+or primary elements of which they are composed. First, we separate the
+alphabet into classes of letters, distinguishing the consonants, mutes,
+vowels, and semivowels; and when we have learnt them singly, we shall
+learn to know them in their various combinations of two or more
+letters; just as the painter knows how to use either a single colour,
+or a combination of colours. And like the painter, we may apply letters
+to the expression of objects, and form them into syllables; and these
+again into words, until the picture or figure—that is, language—is
+completed. Not that I am literally speaking of ourselves, but I mean to
+say that this was the way in which the ancients framed language. And
+this leads me to consider whether the primary as well as the secondary
+elements are rightly given. I may remark, as I was saying about the
+Gods, that we can only attain to conjecture of them. But still we
+insist that ours is the true and only method of discovery; otherwise we
+must have recourse, like the tragic poets, to a Deus ex machina, and
+say that God gave the first names, and therefore they are right; or
+that the barbarians are older than we are, and that we learnt of them;
+or that antiquity has cast a veil over the truth. Yet all these are not
+reasons; they are only ingenious excuses for having no reasons.
+
+I will freely impart to you my own notions, though they are somewhat
+crude:—the letter rho appears to me to be the general instrument which
+the legislator has employed to express all motion or kinesis. (I ought
+to explain that kinesis is just iesis (going), for the letter eta was
+unknown to the ancients; and the root, kiein, is a foreign form of
+ienai: of kinesis or eisis, the opposite is stasis). This use of rho is
+evident in the words tremble, break, crush, crumble, and the like; the
+imposer of names perceived that the tongue is most agitated in the
+pronunciation of this letter, just as he used iota to express the
+subtle power which penetrates through all things. The letters phi, psi,
+sigma, zeta, which require a great deal of wind, are employed in the
+imitation of such notions as shivering, seething, shaking, and in
+general of what is windy. The letters delta and tau convey the idea of
+binding and rest in a place: the lambda denotes smoothness, as in the
+words slip, sleek, sleep, and the like. But when the slipping tongue is
+detained by the heavier sound of gamma, then arises the notion of a
+glutinous clammy nature: nu is sounded from within, and has a notion of
+inwardness: alpha is the expression of size; eta of length; omicron of
+roundness, and therefore there is plenty of omicron in the word
+goggulon. That is my view, Hermogenes, of the correctness of names; and
+I should like to hear what Cratylus would say. “But, Socrates, as I was
+telling you, Cratylus mystifies me; I should like to ask him, in your
+presence, what he means by the fitness of names?” To this appeal,
+Cratylus replies “that he cannot explain so important a subject all in
+a moment.” “No, but you may ‘add little to little,’ as Hesiod says.”
+Socrates here interposes his own request, that Cratylus will give some
+account of his theory. Hermogenes and himself are mere sciolists, but
+Cratylus has reflected on these matters, and has had teachers. Cratylus
+replies in the words of Achilles: “‘Illustrious Ajax, you have spoken
+in all things much to my mind,’ whether Euthyphro, or some Muse
+inhabiting your own breast, was the inspirer.” Socrates replies, that
+he is afraid of being self-deceived, and therefore he must “look fore
+and aft,” as Homer remarks. Does not Cratylus agree with him that names
+teach us the nature of things? “Yes.” And naming is an art, and the
+artists are legislators, and like artists in general, some of them are
+better and some of them are worse than others, and give better or worse
+laws, and make better or worse names. Cratylus cannot admit that one
+name is better than another; they are either true names, or they are
+not names at all; and when he is asked about the name of Hermogenes,
+who is acknowledged to have no luck in him, he affirms this to be the
+name of somebody else. Socrates supposes him to mean that falsehood is
+impossible, to which his own answer would be, that there has never been
+a lack of liars. Cratylus presses him with the old sophistical
+argument, that falsehood is saying that which is not, and therefore
+saying nothing;—you cannot utter the word which is not. Socrates
+complains that this argument is too subtle for an old man to
+understand: Suppose a person addressing Cratylus were to say, Hail,
+Athenian Stranger, Hermogenes! would these words be true or false? “I
+should say that they would be mere unmeaning sounds, like the hammering
+of a brass pot.” But you would acknowledge that names, as well as
+pictures, are imitations, and also that pictures may give a right or
+wrong representation of a man or woman:—why may not names then equally
+give a representation true and right or false and wrong? Cratylus
+admits that pictures may give a true or false representation, but
+denies that names can. Socrates argues, that he may go up to a man and
+say “this is year picture,” and again, he may go and say to him “this
+is your name”—in the one case appealing to his sense of sight, and in
+the other to his sense of hearing;—may he not? “Yes.” Then you will
+admit that there is a right or a wrong assignment of names, and if of
+names, then of verbs and nouns; and if of verbs and nouns, then of the
+sentences which are made up of them; and comparing nouns to pictures,
+you may give them all the appropriate sounds, or only some of them. And
+as he who gives all the colours makes a good picture, and he who gives
+only some of them, a bad or imperfect one, but still a picture; so he
+who gives all the sounds makes a good name, and he who gives only some
+of them, a bad or imperfect one, but a name still. The artist of names,
+that is, the legislator, may be a good or he may be a bad artist. “Yes,
+Socrates, but the cases are not parallel; for if you subtract or
+misplace a letter, the name ceases to be a name.” Socrates admits that
+the number 10, if an unit is subtracted, would cease to be 10, but
+denies that names are of this purely quantitative nature. Suppose that
+there are two objects—Cratylus and the image of Cratylus; and let us
+imagine that some God makes them perfectly alike, both in their outward
+form and in their inner nature and qualities: then there will be two
+Cratyluses, and not merely Cratylus and the image of Cratylus. But an
+image in fact always falls short in some degree of the original, and if
+images are not exact counterparts, why should names be? if they were,
+they would be the doubles of their originals, and indistinguishable
+from them; and how ridiculous would this be! Cratylus admits the truth
+of Socrates’ remark. But then Socrates rejoins, he should have the
+courage to acknowledge that letters may be wrongly inserted in a noun,
+or a noun in a sentence; and yet the noun or the sentence may retain a
+meaning. Better to admit this, that we may not be punished like the
+traveller in Egina who goes about at night, and that Truth herself may
+not say to us, “Too late.” And, errors excepted, we may still affirm
+that a name to be correct must have proper letters, which bear a
+resemblance to the thing signified. I must remind you of what
+Hermogenes and I were saying about the letter rho accent, which was
+held to be expressive of motion and hardness, as lambda is of
+smoothness;—and this you will admit to be their natural meaning. But
+then, why do the Eritreans call that skleroter which we call sklerotes?
+We can understand one another, although the letter rho accent is not
+equivalent to the letter s: why is this? You reply, because the two
+letters are sufficiently alike for the purpose of expressing motion.
+Well, then, there is the letter lambda; what business has this in a
+word meaning hardness? “Why, Socrates, I retort upon you, that we put
+in and pull out letters at pleasure.” And the explanation of this is
+custom or agreement: we have made a convention that the rho shall mean
+s and a convention may indicate by the unlike 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 episteme, which is connected with stasis, as mneme is with
+meno. Bebaion, again, is the expression of station and position;
+istoria is clearly descriptive of the stopping istanai of the stream;
+piston indicates the cessation of motion; and there are many words
+having a bad sense, which are connected with ideas of motion, such as
+sumphora, amartia, etc.: amathia, again, might be explained, as e ama
+theo iontos poreia, and akolasia as e akolouthia tois pragmasin. 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 any one 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.”
+
+
+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 of the last century, after their
+manner, would have vainly endeavoured to trace the process by which
+proper names were converted into common, and would have shown how the
+last effort of abstraction invented prepositions and auxiliaries. The
+theologian would have proved that language must have had a divine
+origin, because in childhood, while the organs are pliable, the
+intelligence is wanting, and when the intelligence is able to frame
+conceptions, the organs are no longer able to express them. Or, as
+others have said: Man is man because he has the gift of speech; and he
+could not have invented that which he is. But this would have been an
+“argument too subtle” for Socrates, who rejects the theological account
+of the origin of language “as an excuse for not giving a reason,” which
+he compares to the introduction of the “Deus ex machina” by the tragic
+poets when they have to solve a difficulty; thus anticipating many
+modern controversies in which the primary agency of the divine Being is
+confused with the secondary cause; and God is assumed to have worked a
+miracle in order to fill up a lacuna in human knowledge. (Compare
+Timaeus.)
+
+Neither is Plato wrong in supposing that an element of design and art
+enters into language. The creative power abating is supplemented by a
+mechanical process. “Languages are not made but grow,” but they are
+made as well as grow; bursting into life like a plant or a flower, they
+are also capable of being trained and improved and engrafted upon one
+another. The change in them is effected in earlier ages by musical and
+euphonic improvements, at a later stage by the influence of grammar and
+logic, and by the poetical and literary use of words. They develope
+rapidly in childhood, and when they are full grown and set they may
+still put forth intellectual powers, like the mind in the body, or
+rather we may say that the nobler use of language only begins when the
+frame-work is complete. The savage or primitive man, in whom the
+natural instinct is strongest, is also the greatest improver of the
+forms of language. He is the poet or maker of words, as in civilised
+ages the dialectician is the definer or distinguisher of them. The
+latter calls the second world of abstract terms into existence, as the
+former has created the picture sounds which represent natural objects
+or processes. Poetry and philosophy—these two, are the two great
+formative principles of language, when they have passed their first
+stage, of which, as of the first invention of the arts in general, we
+only entertain conjecture. And mythology is a link between them,
+connecting the visible and invisible, until at length the sensuous
+exterior falls away, and the severance of the inner and outer world, of
+the idea and the object of sense, becomes complete. At a later period,
+logic and grammar, sister arts, preserve and enlarge the decaying
+instinct of language, by rule and method, which they gather from
+analysis and observation.
+
+(2) There is no trace in any of Plato’s writings that he was acquainted
+with any language but Greek. Yet he has conceived very truly the
+relation of Greek to foreign languages, which he is led to consider,
+because he finds that many Greek words are incapable of explanation.
+Allowing a good deal for accident, and also for the fancies of the
+conditores linguae Graecae, there is an element of which he is unable
+to give an account. These unintelligible words he supposes to be of
+foreign origin, and to have been derived from a time when the Greeks
+were either barbarians, or in close relations to the barbarians.
+Socrates is aware that this principle is liable to great abuse; and,
+like the “Deus ex machina,” explains nothing. Hence he excuses himself
+for the employment of such a device, and remarks that in foreign words
+there is still a principle of correctness, which applies equally both
+to Greeks and barbarians.
+
+(3) But the greater number of primary words do not admit of derivation
+from foreign languages; they must be resolved into the letters out of
+which they are composed, and therefore the letters must have a meaning.
+The framers of language were aware of this; they observed that alpha
+was adapted to express size; eta length; omicron roundness; nu
+inwardness; rho accent rush or roar; lambda liquidity; gamma lambda the
+detention of the liquid or slippery element; delta and tau binding;
+phi, psi, sigma, xi, wind and cold, and so on. Plato’s analysis of the
+letters of the alphabet shows a wonderful insight into the nature of
+language. He does not expressively distinguish between mere imitation
+and the symbolical use of sound to express thought, but he recognises
+in the examples which he gives both modes of imitation. Gesture is the
+mode which a deaf and dumb person would take of indicating his meaning.
+And language is the gesture of the tongue; in the use of the letter rho
+accent, to express a rushing or roaring, or of omicron to express
+roundness, there is a direct imitation; while in the use of the letter
+alpha to express size, or of eta to express length, the imitation is
+symbolical. The use of analogous or similar sounds, in order to express
+similar analogous ideas, seems to have escaped him.
+
+In passing from the gesture of the body to the movement of the tongue,
+Plato makes a great step in the physiology of language. He was probably
+the first who said that “language is imitative sound,” which is the
+greatest and deepest truth of philology; although he is not aware of
+the laws of euphony and association by which imitation must be
+regulated. He was probably also the first who made a distinction
+between simple and compound words, a truth second only in importance to
+that which has just been mentioned. His great insight in one direction
+curiously contrasts with his blindness in another; for he appears to be
+wholly unaware (compare his derivation of agathos from agastos and
+thoos) of the difference between the root and termination. But we must
+recollect that he was necessarily more ignorant than any schoolboy of
+Greek grammar, and had no table of the inflexions of verbs and nouns
+before his eyes, which might have suggested to him the distinction.
+
+(4) Plato distinctly affirms that language is not truth, or
+“philosophie une langue bien faite.” At first, Socrates has delighted
+himself with discovering the flux of Heracleitus in language. But he is
+covertly satirising the pretence of that or any other age to find
+philosophy in words; and he afterwards corrects any erroneous inference
+which might be gathered from his experiment. For he finds as many, or
+almost as many, words expressive of rest, as he had previously found
+expressive of motion. And even if this had been otherwise, who would
+learn of words when he might learn of things? There is a great
+controversy and high argument between Heracleiteans and Eleatics, but
+no man of sense would commit his soul in such enquiries to the imposers
+of names...In this and other passages Plato shows that he is as
+completely emancipated from the influence of “Idols of the tribe” as
+Bacon himself.
+
+The lesson which may be gathered from words is not metaphysical or
+moral, but historical. They teach us the affinity of races, they tell
+us something about the association of ideas, they occasionally preserve
+the memory of a disused custom; but we cannot safely argue from them
+about right and wrong, matter and mind, freedom and necessity, or the
+other problems of moral and metaphysical philosophy. For the use of
+words on such subjects may often be metaphorical, accidental, derived
+from other languages, and may have no relation to the contemporary
+state of thought and feeling. Nor in any case is the invention of them
+the result of philosophical reflection; they have been commonly
+transferred from matter to mind, and their meaning is the very reverse
+of their etymology. Because there is or is not a name for a thing, we
+cannot argue that the thing has or has not an actual existence; or that
+the antitheses, parallels, conjugates, correlatives of language have
+anything corresponding to them in nature. There are too many words as
+well as too few; and they generalize the objects or ideas which they
+represent. The greatest lesson which the philosophical analysis of
+language teaches us is, that we should be above language, making words
+our servants, and not allowing them to be our masters.
+
+Plato does not add the further observation, that the etymological
+meaning of words is in process of being lost. If at first framed on a
+principle of intelligibility, they would gradually cease to be
+intelligible, like those of a foreign language, he is willing to admit
+that they are subject to many changes, and put on many disguises. He
+acknowledges that the “poor creature” imitation is supplemented by
+another “poor creature,”—convention. But he does not see that “habit
+and repute,” and their relation to other words, are always exercising
+an influence over them. Words appear to be isolated, but they are
+really the parts of an organism which is always being reproduced. They
+are refined by civilization, harmonized by poetry, emphasized by
+literature, technically applied in philosophy and art; they are used as
+symbols on the border-ground of human knowledge; they receive a fresh
+impress from individual genius, and come with a new force and
+association to every lively-minded person. They are fixed by the
+simultaneous utterance of millions, and yet are always imperceptibly
+changing;—not the inventors of language, but writing and speaking, and
+particularly great writers, or works which pass into the hearts of
+nations, Homer, Shakespear, Dante, the German or English Bible, Kant
+and Hegel, are the makers of them in later ages. They carry with them
+the faded recollection of their own past history; the use of a word in
+a striking and familiar passage gives a complexion to its use
+everywhere else, and the new use of an old and familiar phrase has also
+a peculiar power over us. But these and other subtleties of language
+escaped the observation of Plato. He is not aware that the languages of
+the world are organic structures, and that every word in them is
+related to every other; nor does he conceive of language as the joint
+work of the speaker and the hearer, requiring in man a faculty not only
+of expressing his thoughts but of understanding those of others.
+
+On the other hand, he cannot be justly charged with a desire to frame
+language on artificial principles. Philosophers have sometimes dreamed
+of a technical or scientific language, in words which should have fixed
+meanings, and stand in the same relation to one another as the
+substances which they denote. But there is no more trace of this in
+Plato than there is of a language corresponding to the ideas; nor,
+indeed, could the want of such a language be felt until the sciences
+were far more developed. Those who would extend the use of technical
+phraseology beyond the limits of science or of custom, seem to forget
+that freedom and suggestiveness and the play of association are
+essential characteristics of language. The great master has shown how
+he regarded pedantic distinctions of words or attempts to confine their
+meaning in the satire on Prodicus in the Protagoras.
+
+(5) In addition to these anticipations of the general principles of
+philology, we may note also a few curious observations on words and
+sounds. “The Eretrians say sklerotes for skleroter;” “the Thessalians
+call Apollo Amlos;” “The Phrygians have the words pur, udor, kunes
+slightly changed;” “there is an old Homeric word emesato, meaning ‘he
+contrived’;” “our forefathers, and especially the women, who are most
+conservative of the ancient language, loved the letters iota and delta;
+but now iota is changed into eta and epsilon, and delta into zeta; this
+is supposed to increase the grandeur of the sound.” Plato was very
+willing to use inductive arguments, so far as they were within his
+reach; but he would also have assigned a large influence to chance. Nor
+indeed is induction applicable to philology in the same degree as to
+most of the physical sciences. For after we have pushed our researches
+to the furthest point, in language as in all the other creations of the
+human mind, there will always remain an element of exception or
+accident or free-will, which cannot be eliminated.
+
+The question, “whether falsehood is impossible,” which Socrates
+characteristically sets aside as too subtle for an old man (compare
+Euthyd.), could only have arisen in an age of imperfect consciousness,
+which had not yet learned to distinguish words from things. Socrates
+replies in effect that words have an independent existence; thus
+anticipating the solution of the mediaeval controversy of Nominalism
+and Realism. He is aware too that languages exist in various degrees of
+perfection, and that the analysis of them can only be carried to a
+certain point. “If we could always, or almost always, use likenesses,
+which are the appropriate expressions, that would be the most perfect
+state of language.” These words suggest a question of deeper interest
+than the origin of language; viz. what is the ideal of language, how
+far by any correction of their usages existing languages might become
+clearer and more expressive than they are, more poetical, and also more
+logical; or whether they are now finally fixed and have received their
+last impress from time and authority.
+
+On the whole, the Cratylus seems to contain deeper truths about
+language than any other ancient writing. But feeling the uncertain
+ground upon which he is walking, and partly in order to preserve the
+character of Socrates, Plato envelopes the whole subject in a robe of
+fancy, and allows his principles to drop out as if by accident.
+
+II. What is the result of recent speculations about the origin and
+nature of language? Like other modern metaphysical enquiries, they end
+at last in a statement of facts. But, in order to state or understand
+the facts, a metaphysical insight seems to be required. There are more
+things in language than the human mind easily conceives. And many
+fallacies have to be dispelled, as well as observations made. The true
+spirit of philosophy or metaphysics can alone charm away metaphysical
+illusions, which are always reappearing, formerly in the fancies of
+neoplatonist writers, now in the disguise of experience and common
+sense. An analogy, a figure of speech, an intelligible theory, a
+superficial observation of the individual, have often been mistaken for
+a true account of the origin of language.
+
+Speaking is one of the simplest natural operations, and also the most
+complex. Nothing would seem to be easier or more trivial than a few
+words uttered by a child in any language. Yet into the formation of
+those words have entered causes which the human mind is not capable of
+calculating. They are a drop or two of the great stream or ocean of
+speech which has been flowing in all ages. They have been transmitted
+from one language to another; like the child himself, they go back to
+the beginnings of the human race. How they originated, who can tell?
+Nevertheless we can imagine a stage of human society in which the
+circle of men’s minds was narrower and their sympathies and instincts
+stronger; in which their organs of speech were more flexible, and the
+sense of hearing finer and more discerning; in which they lived more in
+company, and after the manner of children were more given to express
+their feelings; in which “they moved all together,” like a herd of wild
+animals, “when they moved at all.” Among them, as in every society, a
+particular person would be more sensitive and intelligent than the
+rest. Suddenly, on some occasion of interest (at the approach of a wild
+beast, shall we say?), he first, they following him, utter a cry which
+resounds through the forest. The cry is almost or quite involuntary,
+and may be an imitation of the roar of the animal. Thus far we have not
+speech, but only the inarticulate expression of feeling or emotion in
+no respect differing from the cries of animals; for they too call to
+one another and are answered. But now suppose that some one at a
+distance not only hears the sound, but apprehends the meaning: or we
+may imagine that the cry is repeated to a member of the society who had
+been absent; the others act the scene over again when he returns home
+in the evening. And so the cry becomes a word. The hearer in turn gives
+back the word to the speaker, who is now aware that he has acquired a
+new power. Many thousand times he exercises this power; like a child
+learning to talk, he repeats the same cry again, and again he is
+answered; he tries experiments with a like result, and the speaker and
+the hearer rejoice together in their newly-discovered faculty. At first
+there would be few such cries, and little danger of mistaking or
+confusing them. For the mind of primitive man had a narrow range of
+perceptions and feelings; his senses were microscopic; twenty or thirty
+sounds or gestures would be enough for him, nor would he have any
+difficulty in finding them. Naturally he broke out into speech—like the
+young infant he laughed and babbled; but not until there were hearers
+as well as speakers did language begin. Not the interjection or the
+vocal imitation of the object, but the interjection or the vocal
+imitation of the object understood, is the first rudiment of human
+speech.
+
+After a while the word gathers associations, and has an independent
+existence. The imitation of the lion’s roar calls up the fears and
+hopes of the chase, which are excited by his appearance. In the moment
+of hearing the sound, without any appreciable interval, these and other
+latent experiences wake up in the mind of the hearer. Not only does he
+receive an impression, but he brings previous knowledge to bear upon
+that impression. Necessarily the pictorial image becomes less vivid,
+while the association of the nature and habits of the animal is more
+distinctly perceived. The picture passes into a symbol, for there would
+be too many of them and they would crowd the mind; the vocal imitation,
+too, is always in process of being lost and being renewed, just as the
+picture is brought back again in the description of the poet. Words now
+can be used more freely because there are more of them. What was once
+an involuntary expression becomes voluntary. Not only can men utter a
+cry or call, but they can communicate and converse; they can not only
+use words, but they can even play with them. The word is separated both
+from the object and from the mind; and slowly nations and individuals
+attain to a fuller consciousness of themselves.
+
+Parallel with this mental process the articulation of sounds is
+gradually becoming perfected. The finer sense detects the differences
+of them, and begins, first to agglomerate, then to distinguish them.
+Times, persons, places, relations of all kinds, are expressed by
+modifications of them. The earliest parts of speech, as we may call
+them by anticipation, like the first utterances of children, probably
+partook of the nature of interjections and nouns; then came verbs; at
+length the whole sentence appeared, and rhythm and metre followed. Each
+stage in the progress of language was accompanied by some corresponding
+stage in the mind and civilisation of man. In time, when the family
+became a nation, the wild growth of dialects passed into a language.
+Then arose poetry and literature. We can hardly realize to ourselves
+how much with each improvement of language the powers of the human mind
+were enlarged; how the inner world took the place of outer; how the
+pictorial or symbolical or analogical word was refined into a notion;
+how language, fair and large and free, was at last complete.
+
+So we may imagine the speech of man to have begun as with the cries of
+animals, or the stammering lips of children, and to have attained by
+degrees the perfection of Homer and Plato. Yet we are far from saying
+that this or any other theory of language is proved by facts. It is not
+difficult to form an hypothesis which by a series of imaginary
+transitions will bridge over the chasm which separates man from the
+animals. Differences of kind may often be thus resolved into
+differences of degree. But we must not assume that we have in this way
+discovered the true account of them. Through what struggles the
+harmonious use of the organs of speech was acquired; to what extent the
+conditions of human life were different; how far the genius of
+individuals may have contributed to the discovery of this as of the
+other arts, we cannot say: Only we seem to see that language is as much
+the creation of the ear as of the tongue, and the expression of a
+movement stirring the hearts not of one man only but of many, “as the
+trees of the wood are stirred by the wind.” The theory is consistent or
+not inconsistent with our own mental experience, and throws some degree
+of light upon a dark corner of the human mind.
+
+In the later analysis of language, we trace the opposite and contrasted
+elements of the individual and nation, of the past and present, of the
+inward and outward, of the subject and object, of the notional and
+relational, of the root or unchanging part of the word and of the
+changing inflexion, if such a distinction be admitted, of the vowel and
+the consonant, of quantity and accent, of speech and writing, of poetry
+and prose. We observe also the reciprocal influence of sounds and
+conceptions on each other, like the connexion of body and mind; and
+further remark that although the names of objects were originally
+proper names, as the grammarian or logician might call them, yet at a
+later stage they become universal notions, which combine into
+particulars and individuals, and are taken out of the first rude
+agglomeration of sounds that they may be replaced in a higher and more
+logical order. We see that in the simplest sentences are contained
+grammar and logic—the parts of speech, the Eleatic philosophy and the
+Kantian categories. So complex is language, and so expressive not only
+of the meanest wants of man, but of his highest thoughts; so various
+are the aspects in which it is regarded by us. Then again, when we
+follow the history of languages, we observe that they are always slowly
+moving, half dead, half alive, half solid, half fluid; the breath of a
+moment, yet like the air, continuous in all ages and countries,—like
+the glacier, too, containing within them a trickling stream which
+deposits debris of the rocks over which it passes. There were happy
+moments, as we may conjecture, in the lives of nations, at which they
+came to the birth—as in the golden age of literature, the man and the
+time seem to conspire; the eloquence of the bard or chief, as in later
+times the creations of the great writer who is the expression of his
+age, became impressed on the minds of their countrymen, perhaps in the
+hour of some crisis of national development—a migration, a conquest, or
+the like. The picture of the word which was beginning to be lost, is
+now revived; the sound again echoes to the sense; men find themselves
+capable not only of expressing more feelings, and describing more
+objects, but of expressing and describing them better. The world before
+the flood, that is to say, the world of ten, twenty, a hundred thousand
+years ago, has passed away and left no sign. But the best conception
+that we can form of it, though imperfect and uncertain, is gained from
+the analogy of causes still in action, some powerful and sudden, others
+working slowly in the course of infinite ages. Something too may be
+allowed to “the persistency of the strongest,” to “the survival of the
+fittest,” in this as in the other realms of nature.
+
+These are some of the reflections which the modern philosophy of
+language suggests to us about the powers of the human mind and the
+forces and influences by which the efforts of men to utter articulate
+sounds were inspired. Yet in making these and similar generalizations
+we may note also dangers to which we are exposed. (1) There is the
+confusion of ideas with facts—of mere possibilities, and generalities,
+and modes of conception with actual and definite knowledge. The words
+“evolution,” “birth,” “law,” development,” “instinct,” “implicit,”
+“explicit,” and the like, have a false clearness or comprehensiveness,
+which adds nothing to our knowledge. The metaphor of a flower or a
+tree, or some other work of nature or art, is often in like manner only
+a pleasing picture. (2) There is the fallacy of resolving the languages
+which we know into their parts, and then imagining that we can discover
+the nature of language by reconstructing them. (3) There is the danger
+of identifying language, not with thoughts but with ideas. (4) There is
+the error of supposing that the analysis of grammar and logic has
+always existed, or that their distinctions were familiar to Socrates
+and Plato. (5) There is the fallacy of exaggerating, and also of
+diminishing the interval which separates articulate from inarticulate
+language—the cries of animals from the speech of man—the instincts of
+animals from the reason of man. (6) There is the danger which besets
+all enquiries into the early history of man—of interpreting the past by
+the present, and of substituting the definite and intelligible for the
+true but dim outline which is the horizon of human knowledge.
+
+The greatest light is thrown upon the nature of language by analogy. We
+have the analogy of the cries of animals, of the songs of birds (“man,
+like the nightingale, is a singing bird, but is ever binding up
+thoughts with musical notes”), of music, of children learning to speak,
+of barbarous nations in which the linguistic instinct is still
+undecayed, of ourselves learning to think and speak a new language, of
+the deaf and dumb who have words without sounds, of the various
+disorders of speech; and we have the after-growth of mythology, which,
+like language, is an unconscious creation of the human mind. We can
+observe the social and collective instincts of animals, and may remark
+how, when domesticated, they have the power of understanding but not of
+speaking, while on the other hand, some birds which are comparatively
+devoid of intelligence, make a nearer approach to articulate speech. We
+may note how in the animals there is a want of that sympathy with one
+another which appears to be the soul of language. We can compare the
+use of speech with other mental and bodily operations; for speech too
+is a kind of gesture, and in the child or savage accompanied with
+gesture. We may observe that the child learns to speak, as he learns to
+walk or to eat, by a natural impulse; yet in either case not without a
+power of imitation which is also natural to him—he is taught to read,
+but he breaks forth spontaneously in speech. We can trace the impulse
+to bind together the world in ideas beginning in the first efforts to
+speak and culminating in philosophy. But there remains an element which
+cannot be explained, or even adequately described. We can understand
+how man creates or constructs consciously and by design; and see, if we
+do not understand, how nature, by a law, calls into being an organised
+structure. But the intermediate organism which stands between man and
+nature, which is the work of mind yet unconscious, and in which mind
+and matter seem to meet, and mind unperceived to herself is really
+limited by all other minds, is neither understood nor seen by us, and
+is with reluctance admitted to be a fact.
+
+Language is an aspect of man, of nature, and of nations, the
+transfiguration of the world in thought, the meeting-point of the
+physical and mental sciences, and also the mirror in which they are
+reflected, present at every moment to the individual, and yet having a
+sort of eternal or universal nature. When we analyze our own mental
+processes, we find words everywhere in every degree of clearness and
+consistency, fading away in dreams and more like pictures, rapidly
+succeeding one another in our waking thoughts, attaining a greater
+distinctness and consecutiveness in speech, and a greater still in
+writing, taking the place of one another when we try to become
+emancipated from their influence. For in all processes of the mind
+which are conscious we are talking to ourselves; the attempt to think
+without words is a mere illusion,—they are always reappearing when we
+fix our thoughts. And speech is not a separate faculty, but the
+expression of all our faculties, to which all our other powers of
+expression, signs, looks, gestures, lend their aid, of which the
+instrument is not the tongue only, but more than half the human frame.
+
+The minds of men are sometimes carried on to think of their lives and
+of their actions as links in a chain of causes and effects going back
+to the beginning of time. A few have seemed to lose the sense of their
+own individuality in the universal cause or nature. In like manner we
+might think of the words which we daily use, as derived from the first
+speech of man, and of all the languages in the world, as the
+expressions or varieties of a single force or life of language of which
+the thoughts of men are the accident. Such a conception enables us to
+grasp the power and wonder of languages, and is very natural to the
+scientific philologist. For he, like the metaphysician, believes in the
+reality of that which absorbs his own mind. Nor do we deny the enormous
+influence which language has exercised over thought. Fixed words, like
+fixed ideas, have often governed the world. But in such representations
+we attribute to language too much the nature of a cause, and too little
+of an effect,—too much of an absolute, too little of a relative
+character,—too much of an ideal, too little of a matter-of-fact
+existence.
+
+Or again, we may frame a single abstract notion of language of which
+all existent languages may be supposed to be the perversion. But we
+must not conceive that this logical figment had ever a real existence,
+or is anything more than an effort of the mind to give unity to
+infinitely various phenomena. There is no abstract language “in rerum
+natura,” any more than there is an abstract tree, but only languages in
+various stages of growth, maturity, and decay. Nor do other logical
+distinctions or even grammatical exactly correspond to the facts of
+language; for they too are attempts to give unity and regularity to a
+subject which is partly irregular.
+
+We find, however, that there are distinctions of another kind by which
+this vast field of language admits of being mapped out. There is the
+distinction between biliteral and triliteral roots, and the various
+inflexions which accompany them; between the mere mechanical cohesion
+of sounds or words, and the “chemical” combination of them into a new
+word; there is the distinction between languages which have had a free
+and full development of their organisms, and languages which have been
+stunted in their growth,—lamed in their hands or feet, and never able
+to acquire afterwards the powers in which they are deficient; there is
+the distinction between synthetical languages like Greek and Latin,
+which have retained their inflexions, and analytical languages like
+English or French, which have lost them. Innumerable as are the
+languages and dialects of mankind, there are comparatively few classes
+to which they can be referred.
+
+Another road through this chaos is provided by the physiology of
+speech. The organs of language are the same in all mankind, and are
+only capable of uttering a certain number of sounds. Every man has
+tongue, teeth, lips, palate, throat, mouth, which he may close or open,
+and adapt in various ways; making, first, vowels and consonants; and
+secondly, other classes of letters. The elements of all speech, like
+the elements of the musical scale, are few and simple, though admitting
+of infinite gradations and combinations. Whatever slight differences
+exist in the use or formation of these organs, owing to climate or the
+sense of euphony or other causes, they are as nothing compared with
+their agreement. Here then is a real basis of unity in the study of
+philology, unlike that imaginary abstract unity of which we were just
+now speaking.
+
+Whether we regard language from the psychological, or historical, or
+physiological point of view, the materials of our knowledge are
+inexhaustible. The comparisons of children learning to speak, of
+barbarous nations, of musical notes, of the cries of animals, of the
+song of birds, increase our insight into the nature of human speech.
+Many observations which would otherwise have escaped us are suggested
+by them. But they do not explain why, in man and in man only, the
+speaker met with a response from the hearer, and the half articulate
+sound gradually developed into Sanscrit and Greek. They hardly enable
+us to approach any nearer the secret of the origin of language, which,
+like some of the other great secrets of nature,—the origin of birth and
+death, or of animal life,—remains inviolable. That problem is
+indissolubly bound up with the origin of man; and if we ever know more
+of the one, we may expect to know more of the other.[1]
+
+ [1] Compare W. Humboldt, _Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen
+ Sprachbaues_, and M. Müller, _Lectures on the Science of Language_.
+
+
+
+It is more than sixteen years since the preceding remarks were written,
+which with a few alterations have now been reprinted. During the
+interval the progress of philology has been very great. More languages
+have been compared; the inner structure of language has been laid bare;
+the relations of sounds have been more accurately discriminated; the
+manner in which dialects affect or are affected by the literary or
+principal form of a language is better understood. Many merely verbal
+questions have been eliminated; the remains of the old traditional
+methods have died away. The study has passed from the metaphysical into
+an historical stage. Grammar is no longer confused with language, nor
+the anatomy of words and sentences with their life and use. Figures of
+speech, by which the vagueness of theories is often concealed, have
+been stripped off; and we see language more as it truly was. The
+immensity of the subject is gradually revealed to us, and the reign of
+law becomes apparent. Yet the law is but partially seen; the traces of
+it are often lost in the distance. For languages have a natural but not
+a perfect growth; like other creations of nature into which the will of
+man enters, they are full of what we term accident and irregularity.
+And the difficulties of the subject become not less, but greater, as we
+proceed—it is one of those studies in which we seem to know less as we
+know more; partly because we are no longer satisfied with the vague and
+superficial ideas of it which prevailed fifty years ago; partly also
+because the remains of the languages with which we are acquainted
+always were, and if they are still living, are, in a state of
+transition; and thirdly, because there are lacunae in our knowledge of
+them which can never be filled up. Not a tenth, not a hundredth part of
+them has been preserved. Yet the materials at our disposal are far
+greater than any individual can use. Such are a few of the general
+reflections which the present state of philology calls up.
+
+(1) Language seems to be composite, but into its first elements the
+philologer has never been able to penetrate. However far he goes back,
+he never arrives at the beginning; or rather, as in Geology or in
+Astronomy, there is no beginning. He is too apt to suppose that by
+breaking up the existing forms of language into their parts he will
+arrive at a previous stage of it, but he is merely analyzing what never
+existed, or is never known to have existed, except in a composite form.
+He may divide nouns and verbs into roots and inflexions, but he has no
+evidence which will show that the omega of tupto or the mu of tithemi,
+though analogous to ego, me, either became pronouns or were generated
+out of pronouns. To say that “pronouns, like ripe fruit, dropped out of
+verbs,” is a misleading figure of speech. Although all languages have
+some common principles, there is no primitive form or forms of language
+known to us, or to be reasonably imagined, from which they are all
+descended. No inference can be drawn from language, either for or
+against the unity of the human race. Nor is there any proof that words
+were ever used without any relation to each other. Whatever may be the
+meaning of a sentence or a word when applied to primitive language, it
+is probable that the sentence is more akin to the original form than
+the word, and that the later stage of language is the result rather of
+analysis than of synthesis, or possibly is a combination of the two.
+Nor, again, are we sure that the original process of learning to speak
+was the same in different places or among different races of men. It
+may have been slower with some, quicker with others. Some tribes may
+have used shorter, others longer words or cries: they may have been
+more or less inclined to agglutinate or to decompose them: they may
+have modified them by the use of prefixes, suffixes, infixes; by the
+lengthening and strengthening of vowels or by the shortening and
+weakening of them, by the condensation or rarefaction of consonants.
+But who gave to language these primeval laws; or why one race has
+triliteral, another biliteral roots; or why in some members of a group
+of languages b becomes p, or d, t, or ch, k; or why two languages
+resemble one another in certain parts of their structure and differ in
+others; or why in one language there is a greater development of
+vowels, in another of consonants, and the like—are questions of which
+we only “entertain conjecture.” We must remember the length of time
+that has elapsed since man first walked upon the earth, and that in
+this vast but unknown period every variety of language may have been in
+process of formation and decay, many times over.
+
+(Compare Plato, Laws):—
+
+“ATHENIAN STRANGER: And what then is to be regarded as the origin of
+government? Will not a man be able to judge best from a point of view
+in which he may behold the progress of states and their transitions to
+good and evil?
+
+CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
+
+ATHENIAN STRANGER: I mean that he might watch them from the point of
+view of time, and observe the changes which take place in them during
+infinite ages.
+
+CLEINIAS: How so?
+
+ATHENIAN STRANGER: Why, do you think that you can reckon the time which
+has elapsed since cities first existed and men were citizens of them?
+
+CLEINIAS: Hardly.
+
+ATHENIAN STRANGER: But you are quite sure that it must be vast and
+incalculable?
+
+CLEINIAS: No doubt.
+
+ATHENIAN STRANGER: And have there not been thousands and thousands of
+cities which have come into being and perished during this period? And
+has not every place had endless forms of government, and been sometimes
+rising, and at other times falling, and again improving or waning?”
+
+Aristot. Metaph.:—
+
+“And if a person should conceive the tales of mythology to mean only
+that men thought the gods to be the first essences of things, he would
+deem the reflection to have been inspired and would consider that,
+whereas probably every art and part of wisdom had been DISCOVERED AND
+LOST MANY TIMES OVER, such notions were but a remnant of the past which
+has survived to our day.”)
+
+It can hardly be supposed that any traces of an original language still
+survive, any more than of the first huts or buildings which were
+constructed by man. Nor are we at all certain of the relation, if any,
+in which the greater families of languages stand to each other. The
+influence of individuals must always have been a disturbing element.
+Like great writers in later times, there may have been many a barbaric
+genius who taught the men of his tribe to sing or speak, showing them
+by example how to continue or divide their words, charming their souls
+with rhythm and accent and intonation, finding in familiar objects the
+expression of their confused fancies—to whom the whole of language
+might in truth be said to be a figure of speech. One person may have
+introduced a new custom into the formation or pronunciation of a word;
+he may have been imitated by others, and the custom, or form, or
+accent, or quantity, or rhyme which he introduced in a single word may
+have become the type on which many other words or inflexions of words
+were framed, and may have quickly ran through a whole language. For
+like the other gifts which nature has bestowed upon man, that of speech
+has been conveyed to him through the medium, not of the many, but of
+the few, who were his “law-givers”—“the legislator with the
+dialectician standing on his right hand,” in Plato’s striking image,
+who formed the manners of men and gave them customs, whose voice and
+look and behaviour, whose gesticulations and other peculiarities were
+instinctively imitated by them,—the “king of men” who was their priest,
+almost their God...But these are conjectures only: so little do we know
+of the origin of language that the real scholar is indisposed to touch
+the subject at all.
+
+(2) There are other errors besides the figment of a primitive or
+original language which it is time to leave behind us. We no longer
+divide languages into synthetical and analytical, or suppose similarity
+of structure to be the safe or only guide to the affinities of them. We
+do not confuse the parts of speech with the categories of Logic. Nor do
+we conceive languages any more than civilisations to be in a state of
+dissolution; they do not easily pass away, but are far more tenacious
+of life than the tribes by whom they are spoken. “Where two or three
+are gathered together,” they survive. As in the human frame, as in the
+state, there is a principle of renovation as well as of decay which is
+at work in all of them. Neither do we suppose them to be invented by
+the wit of man. With few exceptions, e.g. technical words or words
+newly imported from a foreign language, and the like, in which art has
+imitated nature, “words are not made but grow.” Nor do we attribute to
+them a supernatural origin. The law which regulates them is like the
+law which governs the circulation of the blood, or the rising of the
+sap in trees; the action of it is uniform, but the result, which
+appears in the superficial forms of men and animals or in the leaves of
+trees, is an endless profusion and variety. The laws of vegetation are
+invariable, but no two plants, no two leaves of the forest are
+precisely the same. The laws of language are invariable, but no two
+languages are alike, no two words have exactly the same meaning. No two
+sounds are exactly of the same quality, or give precisely the same
+impression.
+
+It would be well if there were a similar consensus about some other
+points which appear to be still in dispute. Is language conscious or
+unconscious? In speaking or writing have we present to our minds the
+meaning or the sound or the construction of the words which we are
+using?—No more than the separate drops of water with which we quench
+our thirst are present: the whole draught may be conscious, but not the
+minute particles of which it is made up: So the whole sentence may be
+conscious, but the several words, syllables, letters are not thought of
+separately when we are uttering them. Like other natural operations,
+the process of speech, when most perfect, is least observed by us. We
+do not pause at each mouthful to dwell upon the taste of it: nor has
+the speaker time to ask himself the comparative merits of different
+modes of expression while he is uttering them. There are many things in
+the use of language which may be observed from without, but which
+cannot be explained from within. Consciousness carries us but a little
+way in the investigation of the mind; it is not the faculty of internal
+observation, but only the dim light which makes such observation
+possible. What is supposed to be our consciousness of language is
+really only the analysis of it, and this analysis admits of innumerable
+degrees. But would it not be better if this term, which is so
+misleading, and yet has played so great a part in mental science, were
+either banished or used only with the distinct meaning of “attention to
+our own minds,” such as is called forth, not by familiar mental
+processes, but by the interruption of them? Now in this sense we may
+truly say that we are not conscious of ordinary speech, though we are
+commonly roused to attention by the misuse or mispronunciation of a
+word. Still less, even in schools and academies, do we ever attempt to
+invent new words or to alter the meaning of old ones, except in the
+case, mentioned above, of technical or borrowed words which are
+artificially made or imported because a need of them is felt. Neither
+in our own nor in any other age has the conscious effort of reflection
+in man contributed in an appreciable degree to the formation of
+language. “Which of us by taking thought” can make new words or
+constructions? Reflection is the least of the causes by which language
+is affected, and is likely to have the least power, when the linguistic
+instinct is greatest, as in young children and in the infancy of
+nations.
+
+A kindred error is the separation of the phonetic from the mental
+element of language; they are really inseparable—no definite line can
+be drawn between them, any more than in any other common act of mind
+and body. It is true that within certain limits we possess the power of
+varying sounds by opening and closing the mouth, by touching the palate
+or the teeth with the tongue, by lengthening or shortening the vocal
+instrument, by greater or less stress, by a higher or lower pitch of
+the voice, and we can substitute one note or accent for another. But
+behind the organs of speech and their action there remains the
+informing mind, which sets them in motion and works together with them.
+And behind the great structure of human speech and the lesser varieties
+of language which arise out of the many degrees and kinds of human
+intercourse, there is also the unknown or over-ruling law of God or
+nature which gives order to it in its infinite greatness, and variety
+in its infinitesimal minuteness—both equally inscrutable to us. We need
+no longer discuss whether philology is to be classed with the Natural
+or the Mental sciences, if we frankly recognize that, like all the
+sciences which are concerned with man, it has a double aspect,—inward
+and outward; and that the inward can only be known through the outward.
+Neither need we raise the question whether the laws of language, like
+the other laws of human action, admit of exceptions. The answer in all
+cases is the same—that the laws of nature are uniform, though the
+consistency or continuity of them is not always perceptible to us. The
+superficial appearances of language, as of nature, are irregular, but
+we do not therefore deny their deeper uniformity. The comparison of the
+growth of language in the individual and in the nation cannot be wholly
+discarded, for nations are made up of individuals. But in this, as in
+the other political sciences, we must distinguish between collective
+and individual actions or processes, and not attribute to the one what
+belongs to the other. Again, when we speak of the hereditary or
+paternity of a language, we must remember that the parents are alive as
+well as the children, and that all the preceding generations survive
+(after a manner) in the latest form of it. And when, for the purposes
+of comparison, we form into groups the roots or terminations of words,
+we should not forget how casual is the manner in which their
+resemblances have arisen—they were not first written down by a
+grammarian in the paradigms of a grammar and learned out of a book, but
+were due to many chance attractions of sound or of meaning, or of both
+combined. So many cautions have to be borne in mind, and so many first
+thoughts to be dismissed, before we can proceed safely in the path of
+philological enquiry. It might be well sometimes to lay aside figures
+of speech, such as the “root” and the “branches,” the “stem,” the
+“strata” of Geology, the “compounds” of Chemistry, “the ripe fruit of
+pronouns dropping from verbs” (see above), and the like, which are
+always interesting, but are apt to be delusive. Yet such figures of
+speech are far nearer the truth than the theories which attribute the
+invention and improvement of language to the conscious action of the
+human mind...Lastly, it is doubted by recent philologians whether
+climate can be supposed to have exercised any influence worth speaking
+of on a language: such a view is said to be unproven: it had better
+therefore not be silently assumed.
+
+“Natural selection” and the “survival of the fittest” have been applied
+in the field of philology, as well as in the other sciences which are
+concerned with animal and vegetable life. And a Darwinian school of
+philologists has sprung up, who are sometimes accused of putting words
+in the place of things. It seems to be true, that whether applied to
+language or to other branches of knowledge, the Darwinian theory,
+unless very precisely defined, hardly escapes from being a truism. If
+by “the natural selection” of words or meanings of words or by the
+“persistence and survival of the fittest” the maintainer of the theory
+intends to affirm nothing more than this—that the word “fittest to
+survive” survives, he adds not much to the knowledge of language. But
+if he means that the word or the meaning of the word or some portion of
+the word which comes into use or drops out of use is selected or
+rejected on the ground of economy or parsimony or ease to the speaker
+or clearness or euphony or expressiveness, or greater or less demand
+for it, or anything of this sort, he is affirming a proposition which
+has several senses, and in none of these senses can be assisted to be
+uniformly true. For the laws of language are precarious, and can only
+act uniformly when there is such frequency of intercourse among
+neighbours as is sufficient to enforce them. And there are many reasons
+why a man should prefer his own way of speaking to that of others,
+unless by so doing he becomes unintelligible. The struggle for
+existence among words is not of that fierce and irresistible kind in
+which birds, beasts and fishes devour one another, but of a milder
+sort, allowing one usage to be substituted for another, not by force,
+but by the persuasion, or rather by the prevailing habit, of a
+majority. The favourite figure, in this, as in some other uses of it,
+has tended rather to obscure than explain the subject to which it has
+been applied. Nor in any case can the struggle for existence be deemed
+to be the sole or principal cause of changes in language, but only one
+among many, and one of which we cannot easily measure the importance.
+There is a further objection which may be urged equally against all
+applications of the Darwinian theory. As in animal life and likewise in
+vegetable, so in languages, the process of change is said to be
+insensible: sounds, like animals, are supposed to pass into one another
+by imperceptible gradation. But in both cases the newly-created forms
+soon become fixed; there are few if any vestiges of the intermediate
+links, and so the better half of the evidence of the change is wanting.
+
+(3) Among the incumbrances or illusions of language may be reckoned
+many of the rules and traditions of grammar, whether ancient grammar or
+the corrections of it which modern philology has introduced. Grammar,
+like law, delights in definition: human speech, like human action,
+though very far from being a mere chaos, is indefinite, admits of
+degrees, and is always in a state of change or transition. Grammar
+gives an erroneous conception of language: for it reduces to a system
+that which is not a system. Its figures of speech, pleonasms, ellipses,
+anacolutha, pros to semainomenon, and the like have no reality; they do
+not either make conscious expressions more intelligible or show the way
+in which they have arisen; they are chiefly designed to bring an
+earlier use of language into conformity with the later. Often they seem
+intended only to remind us that great poets like Aeschylus or Sophocles
+or Pindar or a great prose writer like Thucydides are guilty of taking
+unwarrantable liberties with grammatical rules; it appears never to
+have occurred to the inventors of them that these real “conditores
+linguae Graecae” lived in an age before grammar, when “Greece also was
+living Greece.” It is the anatomy, not the physiology of language,
+which grammar seeks to describe: into the idiom and higher life of
+words it does not enter. The ordinary Greek grammar gives a complete
+paradigm of the verb, without suggesting that the double or treble
+forms of Perfects, Aorists, etc. are hardly ever contemporaneous. It
+distinguishes Moods and Tenses, without observing how much of the
+nature of one passes into the other. It makes three Voices, Active,
+Passive, and Middle, but takes no notice of the precarious existence
+and uncertain character of the last of the three. Language is a thing
+of degrees and relations and associations and exceptions: grammar ties
+it up in fixed rules. Language has many varieties of usage: grammar
+tries to reduce them to a single one. Grammar divides verbs into
+regular and irregular: it does not recognize that the irregular,
+equally with the regular, are subject to law, and that a language which
+had no exceptions would not be a natural growth: for it could not have
+been subjected to the influences by which language is ordinarily
+affected. It is always wanting to describe ancient languages in the
+terms of a modern one. It has a favourite fiction that one word is put
+in the place of another; the truth is that no word is ever put for
+another. It has another fiction, that a word has been omitted: words
+are omitted because they are no longer needed; and the omission has
+ceased to be observed. The common explanation of kata or some other
+preposition “being understood” in a Greek sentence is another fiction
+of the same kind, which tends to disguise the fact that under cases
+were comprehended originally many more relations, and that prepositions
+are used only to define the meaning of them with greater precision.
+These instances are sufficient to show the sort of errors which grammar
+introduces into language. We are not considering the question of its
+utility to the beginner in the study. Even to him the best grammar is
+the shortest and that in which he will have least to unlearn. It may be
+said that the explanations here referred to are already out of date,
+and that the study of Greek grammar has received a new character from
+comparative philology. This is true; but it is also true that the
+traditional grammar has still a great hold on the mind of the student.
+
+Metaphysics are even more troublesome than the figments of grammar,
+because they wear the appearance of philosophy and there is no test to
+which they can be subjected. They are useful in so far as they give us
+an insight into the history of the human mind and the modes of thought
+which have existed in former ages; or in so far as they furnish wider
+conceptions of the different branches of knowledge and of their
+relation to one another. But they are worse than useless when they
+outrun experience and abstract the mind from the observation of facts,
+only to envelope it in a mist of words. Some philologers, like
+Schleicher, have been greatly influenced by the philosophy of Hegel;
+nearly all of them to a certain extent have fallen under the dominion
+of physical science. Even Kant himself thought that the first
+principles of philosophy could be elicited from the analysis of the
+proposition, in this respect falling short of Plato. Westphal holds
+that there are three stages of language: (1) in which things were
+characterized independently, (2) in which they were regarded in
+relation to human thought, and (3) in relation to one another. But are
+not such distinctions an anachronism? for they imply a growth of
+abstract ideas which never existed in early times. Language cannot be
+explained by Metaphysics; for it is prior to them and much more nearly
+allied to sense. It is not likely that the meaning of the cases is
+ultimately resolvable into relations of space and time. Nor can we
+suppose the conception of cause and effect or of the finite and
+infinite or of the same and other to be latent in language at a time
+when in their abstract form they had never entered into the mind of
+man...If the science of Comparative Philology had possessed “enough of
+Metaphysics to get rid of Metaphysics,” it would have made far greater
+progress.
+
+(4) Our knowledge of language is almost confined to languages which are
+fully developed. They are of several patterns; and these become altered
+by admixture in various degrees,—they may only borrow a few words from
+one another and retain their life comparatively unaltered, or they may
+meet in a struggle for existence until one of the two is overpowered
+and retires from the field. They attain the full rights and dignity of
+language when they acquire the use of writing and have a literature of
+their own; they pass into dialects and grow out of them, in proportion
+as men are isolated or united by locality or occupation. The common
+language sometimes reacts upon the dialects and imparts to them also a
+literary character. The laws of language can be best discerned in the
+great crises of language, especially in the transitions from ancient to
+modern forms of them, whether in Europe or Asia. Such changes are the
+silent notes of the world’s history; they mark periods of unknown
+length in which war and conquest were running riot over whole
+continents, times of suffering too great to be endured by the human
+race, in which the masters became subjects and the subject races
+masters, in which driven by necessity or impelled by some instinct,
+tribes or nations left their original homes and but slowly found a
+resting-place. Language would be the greatest of all historical
+monuments, if it could only tell us the history of itself.
+
+(5) There are many ways in which we may approach this study. The
+simplest of all is to observe our own use of language in conversation
+or in writing, how we put words together, how we construct and connect
+sentences, what are the rules of accent and rhythm in verse or prose,
+the formation and composition of words, the laws of euphony and sound,
+the affinities of letters, the mistakes to which we are ourselves most
+liable of spelling or pronunciation. We may compare with our own
+language some other, even when we have only a slight knowledge of it,
+such as French or German. Even a little Latin will enable us to
+appreciate the grand difference between ancient and modern European
+languages. In the child learning to speak we may note the inherent
+strength of language, which like “a mountain river” is always forcing
+its way out. We may witness the delight in imitation and repetition,
+and some of the laws by which sounds pass into one another. We may
+learn something also from the falterings of old age, the searching for
+words, and the confusion of them with one another, the forgetfulness of
+proper names (more commonly than of other words because they are more
+isolated), aphasia, and the like. There are philological lessons also
+to be gathered from nicknames, from provincialisms, from the slang of
+great cities, from the argot of Paris (that language of suffering and
+crime, so pathetically described by Victor Hugo), from the imperfect
+articulation of the deaf and dumb, from the jabbering of animals, from
+the analysis of sounds in relation to the organs of speech. The
+phonograph affords a visible evidence of the nature and divisions of
+sound; we may be truly said to know what we can manufacture. Artificial
+languages, such as that of Bishop Wilkins, are chiefly useful in
+showing what language is not. The study of any foreign language may be
+made also a study of Comparative Philology. There are several points,
+such as the nature of irregular verbs, of indeclinable parts of speech,
+the influence of euphony, the decay or loss of inflections, the
+elements of syntax, which may be examined as well in the history of our
+own language as of any other. A few well-selected questions may lead
+the student at once into the heart of the mystery: such as, Why are the
+pronouns and the verb of existence generally more irregular than any
+other parts of speech? Why is the number of words so small in which the
+sound is an echo of the sense? Why does the meaning of words depart so
+widely from their etymology? Why do substantives often differ in
+meaning from the verbs to which they are related, adverbs from
+adjectives? Why do words differing in origin coalesce in the same sound
+though retaining their differences of meaning? Why are some verbs
+impersonal? Why are there only so many parts of speech, and on what
+principle are they divided? These are a few crucial questions which
+give us an insight from different points of view into the true nature
+of language.
+
+(6) Thus far we have been endeavouring to strip off from language the
+false appearances in which grammar and philology, or the love of system
+generally, have clothed it. We have also sought to indicate the sources
+of our knowledge of it and the spirit in which we should approach it,
+we may now proceed to consider some of the principles or natural laws
+which have created or modified it.
+
+i. The first and simplest of all the principles of language, common
+also to the animals, is imitation. The lion roars, the wolf howls in
+the solitude of the forest: they are answered by similar cries heard
+from a distance. The bird, too, mimics the voice of man and makes
+answer to him. Man tells to man the secret place in which he is hiding
+himself; he remembers and repeats the sound which he has heard. The
+love of imitation becomes a passion and an instinct to him. Primitive
+men learnt to speak from one another, like a child from its mother or
+nurse. They learnt of course a rudimentary, half-articulate language,
+the cry or song or speech which was the expression of what we now call
+human thoughts and feelings. We may still remark how much greater and
+more natural the exercise of the power is in the use of language than
+in any other process or action of the human mind.
+
+ii. Imitation provided the first material of language: but it was
+“without form and void.” During how many years or hundreds or thousands
+of years the imitative or half-articulate stage continued there is no
+possibility of determining. But we may reasonably conjecture that there
+was a time when the vocal utterance of man was intermediate between
+what we now call language and the cry of a bird or animal. Speech
+before language was a rudis indigestaque materies, not yet distributed
+into words and sentences, in which the cry of fear or joy mingled with
+more definite sounds recognized by custom as the expressions of things
+or events. It was the principle of analogy which introduced into this
+“indigesta moles” order and measure. It was Anaxagoras’ omou panta
+chremata, eita nous elthon diekosmese: the light of reason lighted up
+all things and at once began to arrange them. In every sentence, in
+every word and every termination of a word, this power of forming
+relations to one another was contained. There was a proportion of sound
+to sound, of meaning to meaning, of meaning to sound. The cases and
+numbers of nouns, the persons, tenses, numbers of verbs, were generally
+on the same or nearly the same pattern and had the same meaning. The
+sounds by which they were expressed were rough-hewn at first; after a
+while they grew more refined—the natural laws of euphony began to
+affect them. The rules of syntax are likewise based upon analogy. Time
+has an analogy with space, arithmetic with geometry. Not only in
+musical notes, but in the quantity, quality, accent, rhythm of human
+speech, trivial or serious, there is a law of proportion. As in things
+of beauty, as in all nature, in the composition as well as in the
+motion of all things, there is a similarity of relations by which they
+are held together.
+
+It would be a mistake to suppose that the analogies of language are
+always uniform: there may be often a choice between several, and
+sometimes one and sometimes another will prevail. In Greek there are
+three declensions of nouns; the forms of cases in one of them may
+intrude upon another. Similarly verbs in -omega and -mu iota
+interchange forms of tenses, and the completed paradigm of the verb is
+often made up of both. The same nouns may be partly declinable and
+partly indeclinable, and in some of their cases may have fallen out of
+use. Here are rules with exceptions; they are not however really
+exceptions, but contain in themselves indications of other rules. Many
+of these interruptions or variations of analogy occur in pronouns or in
+the verb of existence of which the forms were too common and therefore
+too deeply imbedded in language entirely to drop out. The same verbs in
+the same meaning may sometimes take one case, sometimes another. The
+participle may also have the character of an adjective, the adverb
+either of an adjective or of a preposition. These exceptions are as
+regular as the rules, but the causes of them are seldom known to us.
+
+Language, like the animal and vegetable worlds, is everywhere
+intersected by the lines of analogy. Like number from which it seems to
+be derived, the principle of analogy opens the eyes of men to discern
+the similarities and differences of things, and their relations to one
+another. At first these are such as lie on the surface only; after a
+time they are seen by men to reach farther down into the nature of
+things. Gradually in language they arrange themselves into a sort of
+imperfect system; groups of personal and case endings are placed side
+by side. The fertility of language produces many more than are wanted;
+and the superfluous ones are utilized by the assignment to them of new
+meanings. The vacuity and the superfluity are thus partially
+compensated by each other. It must be remembered that in all the
+languages which have a literature, certainly in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin,
+we are not at the beginning but almost at the end of the linguistic
+process; we have reached a time when the verb and the noun are nearly
+perfected, though in no language did they completely perfect
+themselves, because for some unknown reason the motive powers of
+languages seem to have ceased when they were on the eve of completion:
+they became fixed or crystallized in an imperfect form either from the
+influence of writing and literature, or because no further
+differentiation of them was required for the intelligibility of
+language. So not without admixture and confusion and displacement and
+contamination of sounds and the meanings of words, a lower stage of
+language passes into a higher. Thus far we can see and no further. When
+we ask the reason why this principle of analogy prevails in all the
+vast domain of language, there is no answer to the question; or no
+other answer but this, that there are innumerable ways in which, like
+number, analogy permeates, not only language, but the whole world, both
+visible and intellectual. We know from experience that it does not (a)
+arise from any conscious act of reflection that the accusative of a
+Latin noun in “us” should end in “um;” nor (b) from any necessity of
+being understood,—much less articulation would suffice for this; nor
+(c) from greater convenience or expressiveness of particular sounds.
+Such notions were certainly far enough away from the mind of primitive
+man. We may speak of a latent instinct, of a survival of the fittest,
+easiest, most euphonic, most economical of breath, in the case of one
+of two competing sounds; but these expressions do not add anything to
+our knowledge. We may try to grasp the infinity of language either
+under the figure of a limitless plain divided into countries and
+districts by natural boundaries, or of a vast river eternally flowing
+whose origin is concealed from us; we may apprehend partially the laws
+by which speech is regulated: but we do not know, and we seem as if we
+should never know, any more than in the parallel case of the origin of
+species, how vocal sounds received life and grew, and in the form of
+languages came to be distributed over the earth.
+
+iii. Next in order to analogy in the formation of language or even
+prior to it comes the principle of onomatopea, which is itself a kind
+of analogy or similarity of sound and meaning. In by far the greater
+number of words it has become disguised and has disappeared; but in no
+stage of language is it entirely lost. It belongs chiefly to early
+language, in which words were few; and its influence grew less and less
+as time went on. To the ear which had a sense of harmony it became a
+barbarism which disturbed the flow and equilibrium of discourse; it was
+an excrescence which had to be cut out, a survival which needed to be
+got rid of, because it was out of keeping with the rest. It remained
+for the most part only as a formative principle, which used words and
+letters not as crude imitations of other natural sounds, but as symbols
+of ideas which were naturally associated with them. It received in
+another way a new character; it affected not so much single words, as
+larger portions of human speech. It regulated the juxtaposition of
+sounds and the cadence of sentences. It was the music, not of song, but
+of speech, in prose as well as verse. The old onomatopea of primitive
+language was refined into an onomatopea of a higher kind, in which it
+is no longer true to say that a particular sound corresponds to a
+motion or action of man or beast or movement of nature, but that in all
+the higher uses of language the sound is the echo of the sense,
+especially in poetry, in which beauty and expressiveness are given to
+human thoughts by the harmonious composition of the words, syllables,
+letters, accents, quantities, rhythms, rhymes, varieties and contrasts
+of all sorts. The poet with his “Break, break, break” or his e pasin
+nekuessi kataphthimenoisin anassein or his “longius ex altoque sinum
+trahit,” can produce a far finer music than any crude imitations of
+things or actions in sound, although a letter or two having this
+imitative power may be a lesser element of beauty in such passages. The
+same subtle sensibility, which adapts the word to the thing, adapts the
+sentence or cadence to the general meaning or spirit of the passage.
+This is the higher onomatopea which has banished the cruder sort as
+unworthy to have a place in great languages and literatures.
+
+We can see clearly enough that letters or collocations of letters do by
+various degrees of strength or weakness, length or shortness, emphasis
+or pitch, become the natural expressions of the finer parts of human
+feeling or thought. And not only so, but letters themselves have a
+significance; as Plato observes that the letter rho accent is
+expressive of motion, the letters delta and tau of binding and rest,
+the letter lambda of smoothness, nu of inwardness, the letter eta of
+length, the letter omicron of roundness. These were often combined so
+as to form composite notions, as for example in tromos (trembling),
+trachus (rugged), thrauein (crush), krouein (strike), thruptein
+(break), pumbein (whirl),—in all which words we notice a parallel
+composition of sounds in their English equivalents. Plato also remarks,
+as we remark, that the onomatopoetic principle is far from prevailing
+uniformly, and further that no explanation of language consistently
+corresponds with any system of philosophy, however great may be the
+light which language throws upon the nature of the mind. Both in Greek
+and English we find groups of words such as string, swing, sling,
+spring, sting, which are parallel to one another and may be said to
+derive their vocal effect partly from contrast of letters, but in which
+it is impossible to assign a precise amount of meaning to each of the
+expressive and onomatopoetic letters. A few of them are directly
+imitative, as for example the omega in oon, which represents the round
+form of the egg by the figure of the mouth: or bronte (thunder), in
+which the fulness of the sound of the word corresponds to the thing
+signified by it; or bombos (buzzing), of which the first syllable, as
+in its English equivalent, has the meaning of a deep sound. We may
+observe also (as we see in the case of the poor stammerer) that speech
+has the co-operation of the whole body and may be often assisted or
+half expressed by gesticulation. A sound or word is not the work of the
+vocal organs only; nearly the whole of the upper part of the human
+frame, including head, chest, lungs, have a share in creating it; and
+it may be accompanied by a movement of the eyes, nose, fingers, hands,
+feet which contributes to the effect of it.
+
+The principle of onomatopea has fallen into discredit, partly because
+it has been supposed to imply an actual manufacture of words out of
+syllables and letters, like a piece of joiner’s work,—a theory of
+language which is more and more refuted by facts, and more and more
+going out of fashion with philologians; and partly also because the
+traces of onomatopea in separate words become almost obliterated in the
+course of ages. The poet of language cannot put in and pull out
+letters, as a painter might insert or blot out a shade of colour to
+give effect to his picture. It would be ridiculous for him to alter any
+received form of a word in order to render it more expressive of the
+sense. He can only select, perhaps out of some dialect, the form which
+is already best adapted to his purpose. The true onomatopea is not a
+creative, but a formative principle, which in the later stage of the
+history of language ceases to act upon individual words; but still
+works through the collocation of them in the sentence or paragraph, and
+the adaptation of every word, syllable, letter to one another and to
+the rhythm of the whole passage.
+
+iv. Next, under a distinct head, although not separable from the
+preceding, may be considered the differentiation of languages, i.e. the
+manner in which differences of meaning and form have arisen in them.
+Into their first creation we have ceased to enquire: it is their
+aftergrowth with which we are now concerned. How did the roots or
+substantial portions of words become modified or inflected? and how did
+they receive separate meanings? First we remark that words are
+attracted by the sounds and senses of other words, so that they form
+groups of nouns and verbs analogous in sound and sense to one another,
+each noun or verb putting forth inflexions, generally of two or three
+patterns, and with exceptions. We do not say that we know how sense
+became first allied to sound; but we have no difficulty in ascertaining
+how the sounds and meanings of words were in time parted off or
+differentiated. (1) The chief causes which regulate the variations of
+sound are (a) double or differing analogies, which lead sometimes to
+one form, sometimes to another (b) euphony, by which is meant chiefly
+the greater pleasure to the ear and the greater facility to the organs
+of speech which is given by a new formation or pronunciation of a word
+(c) the necessity of finding new expressions for new classes or
+processes of things. We are told that changes of sound take place by
+innumerable gradations until a whole tribe or community or society find
+themselves acquiescing in a new pronunciation or use of language. Yet
+no one observes the change, or is at all aware that in the course of a
+lifetime he and his contemporaries have appreciably varied their
+intonation or use of words. On the other hand, the necessities of
+language seem to require that the intermediate sounds or meanings of
+words should quickly become fixed or set and not continue in a state of
+transition. The process of settling down is aided by the organs of
+speech and by the use of writing and printing. (2) The meaning of words
+varies because ideas vary or the number of things which is included
+under them or with which they are associated is increased. A single
+word is thus made to do duty for many more things than were formerly
+expressed by it; and it parts into different senses when the classes of
+things or ideas which are represented by it are themselves different
+and distinct. A figurative use of a word may easily pass into a new
+sense: a new meaning caught up by association may become more important
+than all the rest. The good or neutral sense of a word, such as Jesuit,
+Puritan, Methodist, Heretic, has been often converted into a bad one by
+the malevolence of party spirit. Double forms suggest different
+meanings and are often used to express them; and the form or accent of
+a word has been not unfrequently altered when there is a difference of
+meaning. The difference of gender in nouns is utilized for the same
+reason. New meanings of words push themselves into the vacant spaces of
+language and retire when they are no longer needed. Language equally
+abhors vacancy and superfluity. But the remedial measures by which both
+are eliminated are not due to any conscious action of the human mind;
+nor is the force exerted by them constraining or necessary.
+
+(7) We have shown that language, although subject to laws, is far from
+being of an exact and uniform nature. We may now speak briefly of the
+faults of language. They may be compared to the faults of Geology, in
+which different strata cross one another or meet at an angle, or mix
+with one another either by slow transitions or by violent convulsions,
+leaving many lacunae which can be no longer filled up, and often
+becoming so complex that no true explanation of them can be given. So
+in language there are the cross influences of meaning and sound, of
+logic and grammar, of differing analogies, of words and the inflexions
+of words, which often come into conflict with each other. The
+grammarian, if he were to form new words, would make them all of the
+same pattern according to what he conceives to be the rule, that is,
+the more common usage of language. The subtlety of nature goes far
+beyond art, and it is complicated by irregularity, so that often we can
+hardly say that there is a right or wrong in the formation of words.
+For almost any formation which is not at variance with the first
+principles of language is possible and may be defended.
+
+The imperfection of language is really due to the formation and
+correlation of words by accident, that is to say, by principles which
+are unknown to us. Hence we see why Plato, like ourselves unable to
+comprehend the whole of language, was constrained to “supplement the
+poor creature imitation by another poor creature convention.” But the
+poor creature convention in the end proves too much for all the rest:
+for we do not ask what is the origin of words or whether they are
+formed according to a correct analogy, but what is the usage of them;
+and we are compelled to admit with Hermogenes in Plato and with Horace
+that usage is the ruling principle, “quem penes arbitrium est, et jus
+et norma loquendi.”
+
+(8) There are two ways in which a language may attain permanence or
+fixity. First, it may have been embodied in poems or hymns or laws,
+which may be repeated for hundreds, perhaps for thousands of years with
+a religious accuracy, so that to the priests or rhapsodists of a nation
+the whole or the greater part of a language is literally preserved;
+secondly, it may be written down and in a written form distributed more
+or less widely among the whole nation. In either case the language
+which is familiarly spoken may have grown up wholly or in a great
+measure independently of them. (1) The first of these processes has
+been sometimes attended by the result that the sound of the words has
+been carefully preserved and that the meaning of them has either
+perished wholly, or is only doubtfully recovered by the efforts of
+modern philology. The verses have been repeated as a chant or part of a
+ritual, but they have had no relation to ordinary life or speech. (2)
+The invention of writing again is commonly attributed to a particular
+epoch, and we are apt to think that such an inestimable gift would have
+immediately been diffused over a whole country. But it may have taken a
+long time to perfect the art of writing, and another long period may
+have elapsed before it came into common use. Its influence on language
+has been increased ten, twenty or one hundred fold by the invention of
+printing.
+
+Before the growth of poetry or the invention of writing, languages were
+only dialects. So they continued to be in parts of the country in which
+writing was not used or in which there was no diffusion of literature.
+In most of the counties of England there is still a provincial style,
+which has been sometimes made by a great poet the vehicle of his
+fancies. When a book sinks into the mind of a nation, such as Luther’s
+Bible or the Authorized English Translation of the Bible, or again
+great classical works like Shakspere or Milton, not only have new
+powers of expression been diffused through a whole nation, but a great
+step towards uniformity has been made. The instinct of language demands
+regular grammar and correct spelling: these are imprinted deeply on the
+tablets of a nation’s memory by a common use of classical and popular
+writers. In our own day we have attained to a point at which nearly
+every printed book is spelt correctly and written grammatically.
+
+(9) Proceeding further to trace the influence of literature on language
+we note some other causes which have affected the higher use of it:
+such as (1) the necessity of clearness and connexion; (2) the fear of
+tautology; (3) the influence of metre, rhythm, rhyme, and of the
+language of prose and verse upon one another; (4) the power of idiom
+and quotation; (5) the relativeness of words to one another.
+
+It has been usual to depreciate modern languages when compared with
+ancient. The latter are regarded as furnishing a type of excellence to
+which the former cannot attain. But the truth seems to be that modern
+languages, if through the loss of inflections and genders they lack
+some power or beauty or expressiveness or precision which is possessed
+by the ancient, are in many other respects superior to them: the
+thought is generally clearer, the connexion closer, the sentence and
+paragraph are better distributed. The best modern languages, for
+example English or French, possess as great a power of self-improvement
+as the Latin, if not as the Greek. Nor does there seem to be any reason
+why they should ever decline or decay. It is a popular remark that our
+great writers are beginning to disappear: it may also be remarked that
+whenever a great writer appears in the future he will find the English
+language as perfect and as ready for use as in the days of Shakspere or
+Milton. There is no reason to suppose that English or French will ever
+be reduced to the low level of Modern Greek or of Mediaeval Latin. The
+wide diffusion of great authors would make such a decline impossible.
+Nor will modern languages be easily broken up by amalgamation with each
+other. The distance between them is too wide to be spanned, the
+differences are too great to be overcome, and the use of printing makes
+it impossible that one of them should ever be lost in another.
+
+The structure of the English language differs greatly from that of
+either Latin or Greek. In the two latter, especially in Greek,
+sentences are joined together by connecting particles. They are
+distributed on the right hand and on the left by men, de, alla, kaitoi,
+kai de and the like, or deduced from one another by ara, de, oun,
+toinun and the like. In English the majority of sentences are
+independent and in apposition to one another; they are laid side by
+side or slightly connected by the copula. But within the sentence the
+expression of the logical relations of the clauses is closer and more
+exact: there is less of apposition and participial structure. The
+sentences thus laid side by side are also constructed into paragraphs;
+these again are less distinctly marked in Greek and Latin than in
+English. Generally French, German, and English have an advantage over
+the classical languages in point of accuracy. The three concords are
+more accurately observed in English than in either Greek or Latin. On
+the other hand, the extension of the familiar use of the masculine and
+feminine gender to objects of sense and abstract ideas as well as to
+men and animals no doubt lends a nameless grace to style which we have
+a difficulty in appreciating, and the possible variety in the order of
+words gives more flexibility and also a kind of dignity to the period.
+Of the comparative effect of accent and quantity and of the relation
+between them in ancient and modern languages we are not able to judge.
+
+Another quality in which modern are superior to ancient languages is
+freedom from tautology. No English style is thought tolerable in which,
+except for the sake of emphasis, the same words are repeated at short
+intervals. Of course the length of the interval must depend on the
+character of the word. Striking words and expressions cannot be allowed
+to reappear, if at all, except at the distance of a page or more.
+Pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions may or rather must recur in
+successive lines. It seems to be a kind of impertinence to the reader
+and strikes unpleasantly both on the mind and on the ear that the same
+sounds should be used twice over, when another word or turn of
+expression would have given a new shade of meaning to the thought and
+would have added a pleasing variety to the sound. And the mind equally
+rejects the repetition of the word and the use of a mere synonym for
+it,—e.g. felicity and happiness. The cultivated mind desires something
+more, which a skilful writer is easily able to supply out of his
+treasure-house.
+
+The fear of tautology has doubtless led to the multiplications of words
+and the meanings of words, and generally to an enlargement of the
+vocabulary. It is a very early instinct of language; for ancient poetry
+is almost as free from tautology as the best modern writings. The
+speech of young children, except in so far as they are compelled to
+repeat themselves by the fewness of their words, also escapes from it.
+When they grow up and have ideas which are beyond their powers of
+expression, especially in writing, tautology begins to appear. In like
+manner when language is “contaminated” by philosophy it is apt to
+become awkward, to stammer and repeat itself, to lose its flow and
+freedom. No philosophical writer with the exception of Plato, who is
+himself not free from tautology, and perhaps Bacon, has attained to any
+high degree of literary excellence.
+
+To poetry the form and polish of language is chiefly to be attributed;
+and the most critical period in the history of language is the
+transition from verse to prose. At first mankind were contented to
+express their thoughts in a set form of words having a kind of rhythm;
+to which regularity was given by accent and quantity. But after a time
+they demanded a greater degree of freedom, and to those who had all
+their life been hearing poetry the first introduction of prose had the
+charm of novelty. The prose romances into which the Homeric Poems were
+converted, for a while probably gave more delight to the hearers or
+readers of them than the Poems themselves, and in time the relation of
+the two was reversed: the poems which had once been a necessity of the
+human mind became a luxury: they were now superseded by prose, which in
+all succeeding ages became the natural vehicle of expression to all
+mankind. Henceforward prose and poetry formed each other. A
+comparatively slender link between them was also furnished by proverbs.
+We may trace in poetry how the simple succession of lines, not without
+monotony, has passed into a complicated period, and how in prose,
+rhythm and accent and the order of words and the balance of clauses,
+sometimes not without a slight admixture of rhyme, make up a new kind
+of harmony, swelling into strains not less majestic than those of
+Homer, Virgil, or Dante.
+
+One of the most curious and characteristic features of language,
+affecting both syntax and style, is idiom. The meaning of the word
+“idiom” is that which is peculiar, that which is familiar, the word or
+expression which strikes us or comes home to us, which is more readily
+understood or more easily remembered. It is a quality which really
+exists in infinite degrees, which we turn into differences of kind by
+applying the term only to conspicuous and striking examples of words or
+phrases which have this quality. It often supersedes the laws of
+language or the rules of grammar, or rather is to be regarded as
+another law of language which is natural and necessary. The word or
+phrase which has been repeated many times over is more intelligible and
+familiar to us than one which is rare, and our familiarity with it more
+than compensates for incorrectness or inaccuracy in the use of it.
+Striking expressions also which have moved the hearts of nations or are
+the precious stones and jewels of great authors partake of the nature
+of idioms: they are taken out of the sphere of grammar and are exempt
+from the proprieties of language. Every one knows that we often put
+words together in a manner which would be intolerable if it were not
+idiomatic. We cannot argue either about the meaning of words or the use
+of constructions that because they are used in one connexion they will
+be legitimate in another, unless we allow for this principle. We can
+bear to have words and sentences used in new senses or in a new order
+or even a little perverted in meaning when we are quite familiar with
+them. Quotations are as often applied in a sense which the author did
+not intend as in that which he did. The parody of the words of
+Shakspere or of the Bible, which has in it something of the nature of a
+lie, is far from unpleasing to us. The better known words, even if
+their meaning be perverted, are more agreeable to us and have a greater
+power over us. Most of us have experienced a sort of delight and
+feeling of curiosity when we first came across or when we first used
+for ourselves a new word or phrase or figure of speech.
+
+There are associations of sound and of sense by which every word is
+linked to every other. One letter harmonizes with another; every verb
+or noun derives its meaning, not only from itself, but from the words
+with which it is associated. Some reflection of them near or distant is
+embodied in it. In any new use of a word all the existing uses of it
+have to be considered. Upon these depends the question whether it will
+bear the proposed extension of meaning or not. According to the famous
+expression of Luther, “Words are living creatures, having hands and
+feet.” When they cease to retain this living power of adaptation, when
+they are only put together like the parts of a piece of furniture,
+language becomes unpoetical, inexpressive, dead.
+
+Grammars would lead us to suppose that words have a fixed form and
+sound. Lexicons assign to each word a definite meaning or meanings.
+They both tend to obscure the fact that the sentence precedes the word
+and that all language is relative. (1) It is relative to its own
+context. Its meaning is modified by what has been said before and after
+in the same or in some other passage: without comparing the context we
+are not sure whether it is used in the same sense even in two
+successive sentences. (2) It is relative to facts, to time, place, and
+occasion: when they are already known to the hearer or reader, they may
+be presupposed; there is no need to allude to them further. (3) It is
+relative to the knowledge of the writer and reader or of the speaker
+and hearer. Except for the sake of order and consecutiveness nothing
+ought to be expressed which is already commonly or universally known. A
+word or two may be sufficient to give an intimation to a friend; a long
+or elaborate speech or composition is required to explain some new idea
+to a popular audience or to the ordinary reader or to a young pupil.
+Grammars and dictionaries are not to be despised; for in teaching we
+need clearness rather than subtlety. But we must not therefore forget
+that there is also a higher ideal of language in which all is
+relative—sounds to sounds, words to words, the parts to the whole—in
+which besides the lesser context of the book or speech, there is also
+the larger context of history and circumstances.
+
+The study of Comparative Philology has introduced into the world a new
+science which more than any other binds up man with nature, and distant
+ages and countries with one another. It may be said to have thrown a
+light upon all other sciences and upon the nature of the human mind
+itself. The true conception of it dispels many errors, not only of
+metaphysics and theology, but also of natural knowledge. Yet it is far
+from certain that this newly-found science will continue to progress in
+the same surprising manner as heretofore; or that even if our materials
+are largely increased, we shall arrive at much more definite
+conclusions than at present. Like some other branches of knowledge, it
+may be approaching a point at which it can no longer be profitably
+studied. But at any rate it has brought back the philosophy of language
+from theory to fact; it has passed out of the region of guesses and
+hypotheses, and has attained the dignity of an Inductive Science. And
+it is not without practical and political importance. It gives a new
+interest to distant and subject countries; it brings back the dawning
+light from one end of the earth to the other. Nations, like
+individuals, are better understood by us when we know something of
+their early life; and when they are better understood by us, we feel
+more kindly towards them. Lastly, we may remember that all knowledge is
+valuable for its own sake; and we may also hope that a deeper insight
+into the nature of human speech will give us a greater command of it
+and enable us to make a nobler use of it.[2]
+
+ [2] Compare again W. Humboldt, _Ueber die Verschiedenheit des
+ menschlichen Sprachbaues_; M. Müller, _Lectures on the Science of
+ Language_; Steinthal, _Einleitung in die Psychologie und
+ Sprachwissenschaft_: and for the latter part of the Essay, Delbruck,
+ _Study of Language_; Paul’s _Principles of the History of Language_:
+ to the latter work the author of this Essay is largely indebted.
+
+
+
+
+CRATYLUS
+
+By Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Hermogenes, Cratylus.
+
+
+HERMOGENES: Suppose that we make Socrates a party to the argument?
+
+CRATYLUS: If you please.
+
+HERMOGENES: I should explain to you, Socrates, that our friend Cratylus
+has been arguing about names; he says that they are natural and not
+conventional; not a portion of the human voice which men agree to use;
+but that there is a truth or correctness in them, which is the same for
+Hellenes as for barbarians. Whereupon I ask him, whether his own name
+of Cratylus is a true name or not, and he answers “Yes.” And Socrates?
+“Yes.” Then every man’s name, as I tell him, is that which he is
+called. To this he replies—“If all the world were to call you
+Hermogenes, that would not be your name.” And when I am anxious to have
+a further explanation he is ironical and mysterious, and seems to imply
+that he has a notion of his own about the matter, if he would only
+tell, and could entirely convince me, if he chose to be intelligible.
+Tell me, Socrates, what this oracle means; or rather tell me, if you
+will be so good, what is your own view of the truth or correctness of
+names, which I would far sooner hear.
+
+SOCRATES: Son of Hipponicus, there is an ancient saying, that “hard is
+the knowledge of the good.” And the knowledge of names is a great part
+of knowledge. If I had not been poor, I might have heard the
+fifty-drachma course of the great Prodicus, which is a complete
+education in grammar and language—these are his own words—and then I
+should have been at once able to answer your question about the
+correctness of names. But, indeed, I have only heard the single-drachma
+course, and therefore, I do not know the truth about such matters; I
+will, however, gladly assist you and Cratylus in the investigation of
+them. When he declares that your name is not really Hermogenes, I
+suspect that he is only making fun of you;—he means to say that you are
+no true son of Hermes, because you are always looking after a fortune
+and never in luck. But, as I was saying, there is a good deal of
+difficulty in this sort of knowledge, and therefore we had better leave
+the question open until we have heard both sides.
+
+HERMOGENES: I have often talked over this matter, both with Cratylus
+and 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
+dialectician must be his director if the names are to be rightly given?
+
+HERMOGENES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, Hermogenes, I should say that this giving of names can
+be no such light matter as you fancy, or the work of light or chance
+persons; and Cratylus is right in saying that things have names by
+nature, and that not every man is an artificer of names, but he only
+who looks to the name which each thing by nature has, and is able to
+express the true forms of things in letters and syllables.
+
+HERMOGENES: I cannot answer you, Socrates; but I find a difficulty in
+changing my opinion all in a moment, and I think that I should be more
+readily persuaded, if you would show me what this is which you term the
+natural fitness of names.
+
+SOCRATES: My good Hermogenes, I have none to show. Was I not telling
+you just now (but you have forgotten), that I knew nothing, and
+proposing to share the enquiry with you? But now that you and I have
+talked over the matter, a step has been gained; for we have discovered
+that names have by nature a truth, and that not every man knows how to
+give a thing a name.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very good.
+
+SOCRATES: And what is the nature of this truth or correctness of names?
+That, if you care to know, is the next question.
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly, I care to know.
+
+SOCRATES: Then reflect.
+
+HERMOGENES: How shall I reflect?
+
+SOCRATES: The true way is to have the assistance of those who know, and
+you must pay them well both in money and in thanks; these are the
+Sophists, of whom your brother, Callias, has—rather dearly—bought the
+reputation of wisdom. But you have not yet come into your inheritance,
+and therefore you had better go to him, and beg and entreat him to tell
+you what he has learnt from Protagoras about the fitness of names.
+
+HERMOGENES: But how inconsistent should I be, if, whilst repudiating
+Protagoras and his truth (“Truth” was the title of the book of
+Protagoras; compare Theaet.), I were to attach any value to what he and
+his book affirm!
+
+SOCRATES: Then if you despise him, you must learn of Homer and the
+poets.
+
+HERMOGENES: And where does Homer say anything about names, and what
+does he say?
+
+SOCRATES: He often speaks of them; notably and nobly in the places
+where he distinguishes the different names which Gods and men give to
+the same things. Does he not in these passages make a remarkable
+statement about the correctness of names? For the Gods must clearly be
+supposed to call things by their right and natural names; do you not
+think so?
+
+HERMOGENES: Why, of course they call them rightly, if they call them at
+all. But to what are you referring?
+
+SOCRATES: Do you not know what he says about the river in Troy who had
+a single combat with Hephaestus?
+
+“Whom,” as he says, “the Gods call Xanthus, and men call Scamander.”
+
+HERMOGENES: I remember.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and about this river—to know that he ought to be called
+Xanthus and not Scamander—is not that a solemn lesson? Or about the
+bird which, as he says,
+
+“The Gods call Chalcis, and men Cymindis:”
+
+to be taught how much more correct the name Chalcis is than the name
+Cymindis—do you deem that a light matter? Or about Batieia and Myrina?
+(Compare Il. “The hill which men call Batieia and the immortals the
+tomb of the sportive Myrina.”) And there are many other observations of
+the same kind in Homer and other poets. Now, I think that this is
+beyond the understanding of you and me; but the names of Scamandrius
+and Astyanax, which he affirms to have been the names of Hector’s son,
+are more within the range of human faculties, as I am disposed to
+think; and what the poet means by correctness may be more readily
+apprehended in that instance: you will remember I dare say the lines to
+which I refer? (Il.)
+
+HERMOGENES: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me ask you, then, which did Homer think the more correct
+of the names given to Hector’s son—Astyanax or Scamandrius?
+
+HERMOGENES: I do not know.
+
+SOCRATES: How would you answer, if you were asked whether the wise or
+the unwise are more likely to give correct names?
+
+HERMOGENES: I should say the wise, of course.
+
+SOCRATES: And are the men or the women of a city, taken as a class, the
+wiser?
+
+HERMOGENES: I should say, the men.
+
+SOCRATES: And Homer, as you know, says that the Trojan men called him
+Astyanax (king of the city); but if the men called him Astyanax, the
+other name of Scamandrius could only have been given to him by the
+women.
+
+HERMOGENES: That may be inferred.
+
+SOCRATES: And must not Homer have imagined the Trojans to be wiser than
+their wives?
+
+HERMOGENES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he must have thought Astyanax to be a more correct name
+for the boy than Scamandrius?
+
+HERMOGENES: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And what is the reason of this? Let us consider:—does he not
+himself suggest a very good reason, when he says,
+
+“For he alone defended their city and long walls”?
+
+This appears to be a good reason for calling the son of the saviour
+king of the city which his father was saving, as Homer observes.
+
+HERMOGENES: I see.
+
+SOCRATES: Why, Hermogenes, I do not as yet see myself; and do you?
+
+HERMOGENES: No, indeed; not I.
+
+SOCRATES: But tell me, friend, did not Homer himself also give Hector
+his name?
+
+HERMOGENES: What of that?
+
+SOCRATES: The name appears to me to be very nearly the same as the name
+of Astyanax—both are Hellenic; and a king (anax) and a holder (ektor)
+have nearly the same meaning, and are both descriptive of a king; for a
+man is clearly the holder of that of which he is king; he rules, and
+owns, and holds it. But, perhaps, you may think that I am talking
+nonsense; and indeed I believe that I myself did not know what I meant
+when I imagined that I had found some indication of the opinion of
+Homer about the correctness of names.
+
+HERMOGENES: I assure you that I think otherwise, and I believe you to
+be on the right track.
+
+SOCRATES: There is reason, I think, in calling the lion’s whelp a lion,
+and the foal of a horse a horse; I am speaking only of the ordinary
+course of nature, when an animal produces after his kind, and not of
+extraordinary births;—if contrary to nature a horse have a calf, then I
+should not call that a foal but a calf; nor do I call any inhuman birth
+a man, but only a natural birth. And the same may be said of trees and
+other things. Do you agree with me?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good. But you had better watch me and see that I do not
+play tricks with you. For on the same principle the son of a king is to
+be called a king. And whether the syllables of the name are the same or
+not the same, makes no difference, provided the meaning is retained;
+nor does the addition or subtraction of a letter make any difference so
+long as the essence of the thing remains in possession of the name and
+appears in it.
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: A very simple matter. I may illustrate my meaning by the
+names of letters, which you know are not the same as the letters
+themselves with the exception of the four epsilon, upsilon, omicron,
+omega; the names of the rest, whether vowels or consonants, are made up
+of other letters which we add to them; but so long as we introduce the
+meaning, and there can be no mistake, the name of the letter is quite
+correct. Take, for example, the letter beta—the addition of eta, tau,
+alpha, gives no offence, and does not prevent the whole name from
+having the value which the legislator intended—so well did he know how
+to give the letters names.
+
+HERMOGENES: I believe you are right.
+
+SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of a king? a king will often be
+the son of a king, the good son or the noble son of a good or noble
+sire; and similarly the offspring of every kind, in the regular course
+of nature, is like the parent, and therefore has the same name. Yet the
+syllables may be disguised until they appear different to the ignorant
+person, and he may not recognize them, although they are the same, just
+as any one of us would not recognize the same drugs under different
+disguises of colour and smell, although to the physician, who regards
+the power of them, they are the same, and he is not put out by the
+addition; and in like manner the etymologist is not put out by the
+addition or transposition or subtraction of a letter or two, or indeed
+by the change of all the letters, for this need not interfere with the
+meaning. As was just now said, the names of Hector and Astyanax have
+only one letter alike, which is tau, and yet they have the same
+meaning. And how little in common with the letters of their names has
+Archepolis (ruler of the city)—and yet the meaning is the same. And
+there are many other names which just mean “king.” Again, there are
+several names for a general, as, for example, Agis (leader) and
+Polemarchus (chief in war) and Eupolemus (good warrior); and others
+which denote a physician, as Iatrocles (famous healer) and Acesimbrotus
+(curer of mortals); and there are many others which might be cited,
+differing in their syllables and letters, but having the same meaning.
+Would you not say so?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The same names, then, ought to be assigned to those who
+follow in the course of nature?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And what of those who follow out of the course of nature, and
+are prodigies? for example, when a good and religious man has an
+irreligious son, he ought to bear the name not of his father, but of
+the class to which he belongs, just as in the case which was before
+supposed of a horse foaling a calf.
+
+HERMOGENES: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the irreligious son of a religious father should be
+called irreligious?
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: He should not be called Theophilus (beloved of God) or
+Mnesitheus (mindful of God), or any of these names: if names are
+correctly given, his should have an opposite meaning.
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Again, Hermogenes, there is Orestes (the man of the
+mountains) who appears to be rightly called; whether chance gave the
+name, or perhaps some poet who meant to express the brutality and
+fierceness and mountain wildness of his hero’s nature.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is very likely, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And his father’s name is also according to nature.
+
+HERMOGENES: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, for as his name, so also is his nature; Agamemnon
+(admirable for remaining) is one who is patient and persevering in the
+accomplishment of his resolves, and by his virtue crowns them; and his
+continuance at Troy with all the vast army is a proof of that admirable
+endurance in him which is signified by the name Agamemnon. I also think
+that Atreus is rightly called; for his murder of Chrysippus and his
+exceeding cruelty to Thyestes are damaging and destructive to his
+reputation—the name is a little altered and disguised so as not to be
+intelligible to every one, but to the etymologist there is no
+difficulty in seeing the meaning, for whether you think of him as
+ateires the stubborn, or as atrestos the fearless, or as ateros the
+destructive one, the name is perfectly correct in every point of view.
+And I think that Pelops is also named appropriately; for, as the name
+implies, he is rightly called Pelops who sees what is near only (o ta
+pelas oron).
+
+HERMOGENES: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: Because, according to the tradition, he had no forethought or
+foresight of all the evil which the murder of Myrtilus would entail
+upon his whole race in remote ages; he saw only what was at hand and
+immediate,—or in other words, pelas (near), in his eagerness to win
+Hippodamia by all means for his bride. Every one would agree that the
+name of Tantalus is rightly given and in accordance with nature, if the
+traditions about him are true.
+
+HERMOGENES: And what are the traditions?
+
+SOCRATES: Many terrible misfortunes are said to have happened to him in
+his life—last of all, came the utter ruin of his country; and after his
+death he had the stone suspended (talanteia) over his head in the world
+below—all this agrees wonderfully well with his name. You might imagine
+that some person who wanted to call him Talantatos (the most weighted
+down by misfortune), disguised the name by altering it into Tantalus;
+and into this form, by some accident of tradition, it has actually been
+transmuted. The name of Zeus, who is his alleged father, has also an
+excellent meaning, although hard to be understood, because really like
+a sentence, which is divided into two parts, for some call him Zena,
+and use the one half, and others who use the other half call him Dia;
+the two together signify the nature of the God, and the business of a
+name, as we were saying, is to express the nature. For there is none
+who is more the author of life to us and to all, than the lord and king
+of all. Wherefore we are right in calling him Zena and Dia, which are
+one name, although divided, meaning the God through whom all creatures
+always have life (di on zen aei pasi tois zosin uparchei). There is an
+irreverence, at first sight, in calling him son of Cronos (who is a
+proverb for stupidity), and we might rather expect Zeus to be the child
+of a mighty intellect. Which is the fact; for this is the meaning of
+his father’s name: Kronos quasi Koros (Choreo, to sweep), not in the
+sense of a youth, but signifying to chatharon chai acheraton tou nou,
+the pure and garnished mind (sc. apo tou chorein). He, as we are
+informed by tradition, was begotten of Uranus, rightly so called (apo
+tou oran ta ano) from looking upwards; which, as philosophers tell us,
+is the way to have a pure mind, and the name Uranus is therefore
+correct. If I could remember the genealogy of Hesiod, I would have gone
+on and tried more conclusions of the same sort on the remoter ancestors
+of the Gods,—then I might have seen whether this wisdom, which has come
+to me all in an instant, I know not whence, will or will not hold good
+to the end.
+
+HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly
+inspired, and to be uttering oracles.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Hermogenes, and I believe that I caught the inspiration
+from the great Euthyphro of the Prospaltian deme, who gave me a long
+lecture which commenced at dawn: he talked and I listened, and his
+wisdom and enchanting ravishment has not only filled my ears but taken
+possession of my soul, and to-day I shall let his superhuman power work
+and finish the investigation of names—that will be the way; but
+to-morrow, if you are so disposed, we will conjure him away, and make a
+purgation of him, if we can only find some priest or sophist who is
+skilled in purifications of this sort.
+
+HERMOGENES: With all my heart; for am very curious to hear the rest of
+the enquiry about names.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let us proceed; and where would you have us begin, now
+that we have got a sort of outline of the enquiry? Are there any names
+which witness of themselves that they are not given arbitrarily, but
+have a natural fitness? The names of heroes and of men in general are
+apt to be deceptive because they are often called after ancestors with
+whose names, as we were saying, they may have no business; or they are
+the expression of a wish like Eutychides (the son of good fortune), or
+Sosias (the Saviour), or Theophilus (the beloved of God), and others.
+But I think that we had better leave these, for there will be more
+chance of finding correctness in the names of immutable essences;—there
+ought to have been more care taken about them when they were named, and
+perhaps there may have been some more than human power at work
+occasionally in giving them names.
+
+HERMOGENES: I think so, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Ought we not to begin with the consideration of the Gods, and
+show that they are rightly named Gods?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, that will be well.
+
+SOCRATES: My notion would be something of this sort:—I suspect that the
+sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven, which are still the Gods of many
+barbarians, were the only Gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes. Seeing
+that they were always moving and running, from their running nature
+they were called Gods or runners (Theous, Theontas); and when men
+became acquainted with the other Gods, they proceeded to apply the same
+name to them all. Do you think that likely?
+
+HERMOGENES: I think it very likely indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: What shall follow the Gods?
+
+HERMOGENES: Must not demons and heroes and men come next?
+
+SOCRATES: Demons! And what do you consider to be the meaning of this
+word? Tell me if my view is right.
+
+HERMOGENES: Let me hear.
+
+SOCRATES: You know how Hesiod uses the word?
+
+HERMOGENES: I do not.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you not remember that he speaks of a golden race of men
+who came first?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, I do.
+
+SOCRATES: He says of them—
+
+“But now that fate has closed over this race They are holy demons upon
+the earth, Beneficent, averters of ills, guardians of mortal men.”
+(Hesiod, Works and Days.)
+
+HERMOGENES: What is the inference?
+
+SOCRATES: What is the inference! Why, I suppose that he means by the
+golden men, not men literally made of gold, but good and noble; and I
+am convinced of this, because he further says that we are the iron
+race.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you not suppose that good men of our own day would by
+him be said to be of golden race?
+
+HERMOGENES: Very likely.
+
+SOCRATES: And are not the good wise?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, they are wise.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore I have the most entire conviction that he
+called them demons, because they were daemones (knowing or wise), and
+in our older Attic dialect the word itself occurs. Now he and other
+poets say truly, that when a good man dies he has honour and a mighty
+portion among the dead, and becomes a demon; which is a name given to
+him signifying wisdom. And I say too, that every wise man who happens
+to be a good man is more than human (daimonion) both in life and death,
+and is rightly called a demon.
+
+HERMOGENES: Then I rather think that I am of one mind with you; but
+what is the meaning of the word “hero”? (Eros with an eta, in the old
+writing eros with an epsilon.)
+
+SOCRATES: I think that there is no difficulty in explaining, for the
+name is not much altered, and signifies that they were born of love.
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: Do you not know that the heroes are demigods?
+
+HERMOGENES: What then?
+
+SOCRATES: All of them sprang either from the love of a God for a mortal
+woman, or of a mortal man for a Goddess; think of the word in the old
+Attic, and you will see better that the name heros is only a slight
+alteration of Eros, from whom the heroes sprang: either this is the
+meaning, or, if not this, then they must have been skilful as
+rhetoricians and dialecticians, and able to put the question (erotan),
+for eirein is equivalent to legein. And therefore, as I was saying, in
+the Attic dialect the heroes turn out to be rhetoricians and
+questioners. All this is easy enough; the noble breed of heroes are a
+tribe of sophists and rhetors. But can you tell me why men are called
+anthropoi?—that is more difficult.
+
+HERMOGENES: No, I cannot; and I would not try even if I could, because
+I think that you are the more likely to succeed.
+
+SOCRATES: That is to say, you trust to the inspiration of Euthyphro.
+
+HERMOGENES: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: Your faith is not vain; for at this very moment a new and
+ingenious thought strikes me, and, if I am not careful, before
+to-morrow’s dawn I shall be wiser than I ought to be. Now, attend to
+me; and first, remember that we often put in and pull out letters in
+words, and give names as we please and change the accents. Take, for
+example, the word Dii Philos; in order to convert this from a sentence
+into a noun, we omit one of the iotas and sound the middle syllable
+grave instead of acute; as, on the other hand, letters are sometimes
+inserted in words instead of being omitted, and the acute takes the
+place of the grave.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: The name anthropos, which was once a sentence, and is now a
+noun, appears to be a case just of this sort, for one letter, which is
+the alpha, has been omitted, and the acute on the last syllable has
+been changed to a grave.
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean to say that the word “man” implies that other animals
+never examine, or consider, or look up at what they see, but that man
+not only sees (opope) but considers and looks up at that which he sees,
+and hence he alone of all animals is rightly anthropos, meaning
+anathron a opopen.
+
+HERMOGENES: May I ask you to examine another word about which I am
+curious?
+
+SOCRATES: Certainly.
+
+HERMOGENES: I will take that which appears to me to follow next in
+order. You know the distinction of soul and body?
+
+SOCRATES: Of course.
+
+HERMOGENES: Let us endeavour to analyze them like the previous words.
+
+SOCRATES: You want me first of all to examine the natural fitness of
+the word psuche (soul), and then of the word soma (body)?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: If I am to say what occurs to me at the moment, I should
+imagine that those who first used the name psuche meant to express that
+the soul when in the body is the source of life, and gives the power of
+breath and revival (anapsuchon), and when this reviving power fails
+then the body perishes and dies, and this, if I am not mistaken, they
+called psyche. But please stay a moment; I fancy that I can discover
+something which will be more acceptable to the disciples of Euthyphro,
+for I am afraid that they will scorn this explanation. What do you say
+to another?
+
+HERMOGENES: Let me hear.
+
+SOCRATES: What is that which holds and carries and gives life and
+motion to the entire nature of the body? What else but the soul?
+
+HERMOGENES: Just that.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you not believe with Anaxagoras, that mind or soul is
+the ordering and containing principle of all things?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes; I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you may well call that power phuseche which carries and
+holds nature (e phusin okei, kai ekei), and this may be refined away
+into psuche.
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly; and this derivation is, I think, more scientific
+than the other.
+
+SOCRATES: It is so; but I cannot help laughing, if I am to suppose that
+this was the true meaning of the name.
+
+HERMOGENES: But what shall we say of the next word?
+
+SOCRATES: You mean soma (the body).
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: That may be variously interpreted; and yet more variously if
+a little permutation is allowed. For some say that the body is the
+grave (sema) of the soul which may be thought to be buried in our
+present life; or again the index of the soul, because the soul gives
+indications to (semainei) the body; probably the Orphic poets were the
+inventors of the name, and they were under the impression that the soul
+is suffering the punishment of sin, and that the body is an enclosure
+or prison in which the soul is incarcerated, kept safe (soma, sozetai),
+as the name soma implies, until the penalty is paid; according to this
+view, not even a letter of the word need be changed.
+
+HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that we have said enough of this class
+of words. But have we any more explanations of the names of the Gods,
+like that which you were giving of Zeus? I should like to know whether
+any similar principle of correctness is to be applied to them.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Hermogenes; and there is one excellent principle
+which, as men of sense, we must acknowledge,—that of the Gods we know
+nothing, either of their natures or of the names which they give
+themselves; but we are sure that the names by which they call
+themselves, whatever they may be, are true. And this is the best of all
+principles; and the next best is to say, as in prayers, that we will
+call them by any sort or kind of names or patronymics which they like,
+because we do not know of any other. That also, I think, is a very good
+custom, and one which I should much wish to observe. Let us, then, if
+you please, in the first place announce to them that we are not
+enquiring about them; we do not presume that we are able to do so; but
+we are enquiring about the meaning of men in giving them these
+names,—in this there can be small blame.
+
+HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that you are quite right, and I would
+like to do as you say.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall we begin, then, with Hestia, according to custom?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, that will be very proper.
+
+SOCRATES: What may we suppose him to have meant who gave the name
+Hestia?
+
+HERMOGENES: That is another and certainly a most difficult question.
+
+SOCRATES: My dear Hermogenes, the first imposers of names must surely
+have been considerable persons; they were philosophers, and had a good
+deal to say.
+
+HERMOGENES: Well, and what of them?
+
+SOCRATES: They are the men to whom I should attribute the imposition of
+names. Even in foreign names, if you analyze them, a meaning is still
+discernible. For example, that which we term ousia is by some called
+esia, and by others again osia. Now that the essence of things should
+be called estia, which is akin to the first of these (esia = estia), is
+rational enough. And there is reason in the Athenians calling that
+estia which participates in ousia. For in ancient times we too seem to
+have said esia for ousia, and this you may note to have been the idea
+of those who appointed that sacrifices should be first offered to
+estia, which was natural enough if they meant that estia was the
+essence of things. Those again who read osia seem to have inclined to
+the opinion of Heracleitus, that all things flow and nothing stands;
+with them the pushing principle (othoun) is the cause and ruling power
+of all things, and is therefore rightly called osia. Enough of this,
+which is all that we who know nothing can affirm. Next in order after
+Hestia we ought to consider Rhea and Cronos, although the name of
+Cronos has been already discussed. But I dare say that I am talking
+great nonsense.
+
+HERMOGENES: Why, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: My good friend, I have discovered a hive of wisdom.
+
+HERMOGENES: Of what nature?
+
+SOCRATES: Well, rather ridiculous, and yet plausible.
+
+HERMOGENES: How plausible?
+
+SOCRATES: I fancy to myself Heracleitus repeating wise traditions of
+antiquity as old as the days of Cronos and Rhea, and of which Homer
+also spoke.
+
+HERMOGENES: How do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: Heracleitus is supposed to say that all things are in motion
+and nothing at rest; he compares them to the stream of a river, and
+says that you cannot go into the same water twice.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, how can we avoid inferring that he who gave the
+names of Cronos and Rhea to the ancestors of the Gods, agreed pretty
+much in the doctrine of Heracleitus? Is the giving of the names of
+streams to both of them purely accidental? Compare the line in which
+Homer, and, as I believe, Hesiod also, tells of
+
+“Ocean, the origin of Gods, and mother Tethys (Il.—the line is not
+found in the extant works of Hesiod.).”
+
+And again, Orpheus says, that
+
+“The fair river of Ocean was the first to marry, and he espoused his
+sister Tethys, who was his mother’s daughter.”
+
+You see that this is a remarkable coincidence, and all in the direction
+of Heracleitus.
+
+HERMOGENES: I think that there is something in what you say, Socrates;
+but I do not understand the meaning of the name Tethys.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, that is almost self-explained, being only the name of a
+spring, a little disguised; for that which is strained and filtered
+(diattomenon, ethoumenon) may be likened to a spring, and the name
+Tethys is made up of these two words.
+
+HERMOGENES: The idea is ingenious, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: To be sure. But what comes next?—of Zeus we have spoken.
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let us next take his two brothers, Poseidon and Pluto,
+whether the latter is called by that or by his other name.
+
+HERMOGENES: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: Poseidon is Posidesmos, the chain of the feet; the original
+inventor of the name had been stopped by the watery element in his
+walks, and not allowed to go on, and therefore he called the ruler of
+this element Poseidon; the epsilon was probably inserted as an
+ornament. Yet, perhaps, not so; but the name may have been originally
+written with a double lamda and not with a sigma, meaning that the God
+knew many things (Polla eidos). And perhaps also he being the shaker of
+the earth, has been named from shaking (seiein), and then pi and delta
+have been added. Pluto gives wealth (Ploutos), and his name means the
+giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath. People in
+general appear to imagine that the term Hades is connected with the
+invisible (aeides) and so they are led by their fears to call the God
+Pluto instead.
+
+HERMOGENES: And what is the true derivation?
+
+SOCRATES: In spite of the mistakes which are made about the power of
+this deity, and the foolish fears which people have of him, such as the
+fear of always being with him after death, and of the soul denuded of
+the body going to him (compare Rep.), my belief is that all is quite
+consistent, and that the office and name of the God really correspond.
+
+HERMOGENES: Why, how is that?
+
+SOCRATES: I will tell you my own opinion; but first, I should like to
+ask you which chain does any animal feel to be the stronger? and which
+confines him more to the same spot,—desire or necessity?
+
+HERMOGENES: Desire, Socrates, is stronger far.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you not think that many a one would escape from Hades,
+if he did not bind those who depart to him by the strongest of chains?
+
+HERMOGENES: Assuredly they would.
+
+SOCRATES: And if by the greatest of chains, then by some desire, as I
+should certainly infer, and not by necessity?
+
+HERMOGENES: That is clear.
+
+SOCRATES: And there are many desires?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore by the greatest desire, if the chain is to be
+the greatest?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And is any desire stronger than the thought that you will be
+made better by associating with another?
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not that the reason, Hermogenes, why no one, who has
+been to him, is willing to come back to us? Even the Sirens, like all
+the rest of the world, have been laid under his spells. Such a charm,
+as I imagine, is the God able to infuse into his words. And, according
+to this view, he is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great
+benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who
+are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much
+more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the
+rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they
+are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires
+and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and
+reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with
+the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the
+body, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with
+him in his own far-famed chains.
+
+HERMOGENES: There is a deal of truth in what you say.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Hermogenes, and the legislator called him Hades, not
+from the unseen (aeides)—far otherwise, but from his knowledge
+(eidenai) of all noble things.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very good; and what do we say of Demeter, and Here, and
+Apollo, and Athene, and Hephaestus, and Ares, and the other deities?
+
+SOCRATES: Demeter is e didousa meter, who gives food like a mother;
+Here is the lovely one (erate)—for Zeus, according to tradition, loved
+and married her; possibly also the name may have been given when the
+legislator was thinking of the heavens, and may be only a disguise of
+the air (aer), putting the end in the place of the beginning. You will
+recognize the truth of this if you repeat the letters of Here several
+times over. People dread the name of Pherephatta as they dread the name
+of Apollo,—and with as little reason; the fear, if I am not mistaken,
+only arises from their ignorance of the nature of names. But they go
+changing the name into Phersephone, and they are terrified at this;
+whereas the new name means only that the Goddess is wise (sophe); for
+seeing that all things in the world are in motion (pheromenon), that
+principle which embraces and touches and is able to follow them, is
+wisdom. And therefore the Goddess may be truly called Pherepaphe
+(Pherepapha), or some name like it, because she touches that which is
+in motion (tou pheromenon ephaptomene), herein showing her wisdom. And
+Hades, who is wise, consorts with her, because she is wise. They alter
+her name into Pherephatta now-a-days, because the present generation
+care for euphony more than truth. There is the other name, Apollo,
+which, as I was saying, is generally supposed to have some terrible
+signification. Have you remarked this fact?
+
+HERMOGENES: To be sure I have, and what you say is true.
+
+SOCRATES: But the name, in my opinion, is really most expressive of the
+power of the God.
+
+HERMOGENES: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain, for I do not believe that any
+single name could have been better adapted to express the attributes of
+the God, embracing and in a manner signifying all four of them,—music,
+and prophecy, and medicine, and archery.
+
+HERMOGENES: That must be a strange name, and I should like to hear the
+explanation.
+
+SOCRATES: Say rather an harmonious name, as beseems the God of Harmony.
+In the first place, the purgations and purifications which doctors and
+diviners use, and their fumigations with drugs magical or medicinal, as
+well as their washings and lustral sprinklings, have all one and the
+same object, which is to make a man pure both in body and soul.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not Apollo the purifier, and the washer, and the
+absolver from all impurities?
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then in reference to his ablutions and absolutions, as being
+the physician who orders them, he may be rightly called Apolouon
+(purifier); or in respect of his powers of divination, and his truth
+and sincerity, which is the same as truth, he may be most fitly called
+Aplos, from aplous (sincere), as in the Thessalian dialect, for all the
+Thessalians call him Aplos; also he is aei Ballon (always shooting),
+because he is a master archer who never misses; or again, the name may
+refer to his musical attributes, and then, as in akolouthos, and
+akoitis, and in many other words the alpha is supposed to mean
+“together,” so the meaning of the name Apollo will be “moving
+together,” whether in the poles of heaven as they are called, or in the
+harmony of song, which is termed concord, because he moves all together
+by an harmonious power, as astronomers and musicians ingeniously
+declare. And he is the God who presides over harmony, and makes all
+things move together, both among Gods and among men. And as in the
+words akolouthos and akoitis the alpha is substituted for an omicron,
+so the name Apollon is equivalent to omopolon; only the second lambda
+is added in order to avoid the ill-omened sound of destruction
+(apolon). Now the suspicion of this destructive power still haunts the
+minds of some who do not consider the true value of the name, which, as
+I was saying just now, has reference to all the powers of the God, who
+is the single one, the everdarting, the purifier, the mover together
+(aplous, aei Ballon, apolouon, omopolon). The name of the Muses and of
+music would seem to be derived from their making philosophical
+enquiries (mosthai); and Leto is called by this name, because she is
+such a gentle Goddess, and so willing (ethelemon) to grant our
+requests; or her name may be Letho, as she is often called by
+strangers—they seem to imply by it her amiability, and her smooth and
+easy-going way of behaving. Artemis is named from her healthy
+(artemes), well-ordered nature, and because of her love of virginity,
+perhaps because she is a proficient in virtue (arete), and perhaps also
+as hating intercourse of the sexes (ton aroton misesasa). He who gave
+the Goddess her name may have had any or all of these reasons.
+
+HERMOGENES: What is the meaning of Dionysus and Aphrodite?
+
+SOCRATES: Son of Hipponicus, you ask a solemn question; there is a
+serious and also a facetious explanation of both these names; the
+serious explanation is not to be had from me, but there is no objection
+to your hearing the facetious one; for the Gods too love a joke.
+Dionusos is simply didous oinon (giver of wine), Didoinusos, as he
+might be called in fun,—and oinos is properly oionous, because wine
+makes those who drink, think (oiesthai) that they have a mind (noun)
+when they have none. The derivation of Aphrodite, born of the foam
+(aphros), may be fairly accepted on the authority of Hesiod.
+
+HERMOGENES: Still there remains Athene, whom you, Socrates, as an
+Athenian, will surely not forget; there are also Hephaestus and Ares.
+
+SOCRATES: I am not likely to forget them.
+
+HERMOGENES: No, indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: There is no difficulty in explaining the other appellation of
+Athene.
+
+HERMOGENES: What other appellation?
+
+SOCRATES: We call her Pallas.
+
+HERMOGENES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And we cannot be wrong in supposing that this is derived from
+armed dances. For the elevation of oneself or anything else above the
+earth, or by the use of the hands, we call shaking (pallein), or
+dancing.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then that is the explanation of the name Pallas?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes; but what do you say of the other name?
+
+SOCRATES: Athene?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern
+interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of
+the ancients. For most of these in their explanations of the poet,
+assert that he meant by Athene “mind” (nous) and “intelligence”
+(dianoia), and the maker of names appears to have had a singular notion
+about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, “divine
+intelligence” (Thou noesis), as though he would say: This is she who
+has the mind of God (Theonoa);—using alpha as a dialectical variety for
+eta, and taking away iota and sigma (There seems to be some error in
+the MSS. The meaning is that the word theonoa = theounoa is a curtailed
+form of theou noesis, but the omitted letters do not agree.). Perhaps,
+however, the name Theonoe may mean “she who knows divine things” (Theia
+noousa) better than others. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that
+the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral
+intelligence (en ethei noesin), and therefore gave her the name
+ethonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into
+what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athene.
+
+HERMOGENES: But what do you say of Hephaestus?
+
+SOCRATES: Speak you of the princely lord of light (Phaeos istora)?
+
+HERMOGENES: Surely.
+
+SOCRATES: Ephaistos is Phaistos, and has added the eta by attraction;
+that is obvious to anybody.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is very probable, until some more probable notion gets
+into your head.
+
+SOCRATES: To prevent that, you had better ask what is the derivation of
+Ares.
+
+HERMOGENES: What is Ares?
+
+SOCRATES: Ares may be called, if you will, from his manhood (arren) and
+manliness, or if you please, from his hard and unchangeable nature,
+which is the meaning of arratos: the latter is a derivation in every
+way appropriate to the God of war.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And now, by the Gods, let us have no more of the Gods, for I
+am afraid of them; ask about anything but them, and thou shalt see how
+the steeds of Euthyphro can prance.
+
+HERMOGENES: Only one more God! I should like to know about Hermes, of
+whom I am said not to be a true son. Let us make him out, and then I
+shall know whether there is any meaning in what Cratylus says.
+
+SOCRATES: I should imagine that the name Hermes has to do with speech,
+and signifies that he is the interpreter (ermeneus), or messenger, or
+thief, or liar, or bargainer; all that sort of thing has a great deal
+to do with language; as I was telling you, the word eirein is
+expressive of the use of speech, and there is an often-recurring
+Homeric word emesato, which means “he contrived”—out of these two
+words, eirein and mesasthai, the legislator formed the name of the God
+who invented language and speech; and we may imagine him dictating to
+us the use of this name: “O my friends,” says he to us, “seeing that he
+is the contriver of tales or speeches, you may rightly call him
+Eirhemes.” And this has been improved by us, as we think, into Hermes.
+Iris also appears to have been called from the verb “to tell” (eirein),
+because she was a messenger.
+
+HERMOGENES: Then I am very sure that Cratylus was quite right in saying
+that I was no true son of Hermes (Ermogenes), for I am not a good hand
+at speeches.
+
+SOCRATES: There is also reason, my friend, in Pan being the
+double-formed son of Hermes.
+
+HERMOGENES: How do you make that out?
+
+SOCRATES: You are aware that speech signifies all things (pan), and is
+always turning them round and round, and has two forms, true and false?
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Is not the truth that is in him the smooth or sacred form
+which dwells above among the Gods, whereas falsehood dwells among men
+below, and is rough like the goat of tragedy; for tales and falsehoods
+have generally to do with the tragic or goatish life, and tragedy is
+the place of them?
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then surely Pan, who is the declarer of all things (pan) and
+the perpetual mover (aei polon) of all things, is rightly called
+aipolos (goat-herd), he being the two-formed son of Hermes, smooth in
+his upper part, and rough and goatlike in his lower regions. And, as
+the son of Hermes, he is speech or the brother of speech, and that
+brother should be like brother is no marvel. But, as I was saying, my
+dear Hermogenes, let us get away from the Gods.
+
+HERMOGENES: From these sort of Gods, by all means, Socrates. But why
+should we not discuss another kind of Gods—the sun, moon, stars, earth,
+aether, air, fire, water, the seasons, and the year?
+
+SOCRATES: You impose a great many tasks upon me. Still, if you wish, I
+will not refuse.
+
+HERMOGENES: You will oblige me.
+
+SOCRATES: How would you have me begin? Shall I take first of all him
+whom you mentioned first—the sun?
+
+HERMOGENES: Very good.
+
+SOCRATES: The origin of the sun will probably be clearer in the Doric
+form, for the Dorians call him alios, and this name is given to him
+because when he rises he gathers (alizoi) men together or because he is
+always rolling in his course (aei eilein ion) about the earth; or from
+aiolein, of which the meaning is the same as poikillein (to variegate),
+because he variegates the productions of the earth.
+
+HERMOGENES: But what is selene (the moon)?
+
+SOCRATES: That name is rather unfortunate for Anaxagoras.
+
+HERMOGENES: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: The word seems to forestall his recent discovery, that the
+moon receives her light from the sun.
+
+HERMOGENES: Why do you say so?
+
+SOCRATES: The two words selas (brightness) and phos (light) have much
+the same meaning?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: This light about the moon is always new (neon) and always old
+(enon), if the disciples of Anaxagoras say truly. For the sun in his
+revolution always adds new light, and there is the old light of the
+previous month.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: The moon is not unfrequently called selanaia.
+
+HERMOGENES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And as she has a light which is always old and always new
+(enon neon aei) she may very properly have the name selaenoneoaeia; and
+this when hammered into shape becomes selanaia.
+
+HERMOGENES: A real dithyrambic sort of name that, Socrates. But what do
+you say of the month and the stars?
+
+SOCRATES: Meis (month) is called from meiousthai (to lessen), because
+suffering diminution; the name of astra (stars) seems to be derived
+from astrape, which is an improvement on anastrope, signifying the
+upsetting of the eyes (anastrephein opa).
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you say of pur (fire) and udor (water)?
+
+SOCRATES: I am at a loss how to explain pur; either the muse of
+Euthyphro has deserted me, or there is some very great difficulty in
+the word. Please, however, to note the contrivance which I adopt
+whenever I am in a difficulty of this sort.
+
+HERMOGENES: What is it?
+
+SOCRATES: I will tell you; but I should like to know first whether you
+can tell me what is the meaning of the pur?
+
+HERMOGENES: Indeed I cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall I tell you what I suspect to be the true explanation of
+this and several other words?—My belief is that they are of foreign
+origin. For the Hellenes, especially those who were under the dominion
+of the barbarians, often borrowed from them.
+
+HERMOGENES: What is the inference?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, you know that any one who seeks to demonstrate the
+fitness of these names according to the Hellenic language, and not
+according to the language from which the words are derived, is rather
+likely to be at fault.
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well then, consider whether this pur is not foreign; for the
+word is not easily brought into relation with the Hellenic tongue, and
+the Phrygians may be observed to have the same word slightly changed,
+just as they have udor (water) and kunes (dogs), and many other words.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Any violent interpretations of the words should be avoided;
+for something to say about them may easily be found. And thus I get rid
+of pur and udor. Aer (air), Hermogenes, may be explained as the element
+which raises (airei) things from the earth, or as ever flowing (aei
+rei), or because the flux of the air is wind, and the poets call the
+winds “air-blasts,” (aetai); he who uses the term may mean, so to
+speak, air-flux (aetorroun), in the sense of wind-flux (pneumatorroun);
+and because this moving wind may be expressed by either term he employs
+the word air (aer = aetes rheo). Aither (aether) I should interpret as
+aeitheer; this may be correctly said, because this element is always
+running in a flux about the air (aei thei peri tou aera reon). The
+meaning of the word ge (earth) comes out better when in the form of
+gaia, for the earth may be truly called “mother” (gaia, genneteira), as
+in the language of Homer (Od.) gegaasi means gegennesthai.
+
+HERMOGENES: Good.
+
+SOCRATES: What shall we take next?
+
+HERMOGENES: There are orai (the seasons), and the two names of the
+year, eniautos and etos.
+
+SOCRATES: The orai should be spelt in the old Attic way, if you desire
+to know the probable truth about them; they are rightly called the orai
+because they divide (orizousin) the summers and winters and winds and
+the fruits of the earth. The words eniautos and etos appear to be the
+same,—“that which brings to light the plants and growths of the earth
+in their turn, and passes them in review within itself (en eauto
+exetazei)”: this is broken up into two words, eniautos from en eauto,
+and etos from etazei, just as the original name of Zeus was divided
+into Zena and Dia; and the whole proposition means that his power of
+reviewing from within is one, but has two names, two words etos and
+eniautos being thus formed out of a single proposition.
+
+HERMOGENES: Indeed, Socrates, you make surprising progress.
+
+SOCRATES: I am run away with.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: But am not yet at my utmost speed.
+
+HERMOGENES: I should like very much to know, in the next place, how you
+would explain the virtues. What principle of correctness is there in
+those charming words—wisdom, understanding, justice, and the rest of
+them?
+
+SOCRATES: That is a tremendous class of names which you are
+disinterring; still, as I have put on the lion’s skin, I must not be
+faint of heart; and I suppose that I must consider the meaning of
+wisdom (phronesis) and understanding (sunesis), and judgment (gnome),
+and knowledge (episteme), and all those other charming words, as you
+call them?
+
+HERMOGENES: Surely, we must not leave off until we find out their
+meaning.
+
+SOCRATES: By the dog of Egypt I have a not bad notion which came into
+my head only this moment: I believe that the primeval givers of names
+were undoubtedly like too many of our modern philosophers, who, in
+their search after the nature of things, are always getting dizzy from
+constantly going round and round, and then they imagine that the world
+is going round and round and moving in all directions; and this
+appearance, which arises out of their own internal condition, they
+suppose to be a reality of nature; they think that there is nothing
+stable or permanent, but only flux and motion, and that the world is
+always full of every sort of motion and change. The consideration of
+the names which I mentioned has led me into making this reflection.
+
+HERMOGENES: How is that, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Perhaps you did not observe that in the names which have been
+just cited, the motion or flux or generation of things is most surely
+indicated.
+
+HERMOGENES: No, indeed, I never thought of it.
+
+SOCRATES: Take the first of those which you mentioned; clearly that is
+a name indicative of motion.
+
+HERMOGENES: What was the name?
+
+SOCRATES: Phronesis (wisdom), which may signify phoras kai rhou noesis
+(perception of motion and flux), or perhaps phoras onesis (the blessing
+of motion), but is at any rate connected with pheresthai (motion);
+gnome (judgment), again, certainly implies the ponderation or
+consideration (nomesis) of generation, for to ponder is the same as to
+consider; or, if you would rather, here is noesis, the very word just
+now mentioned, which is neou esis (the desire of the new); the word
+neos implies that the world is always in process of creation. The giver
+of the name wanted to express this longing of the soul, for the
+original name was neoesis, and not noesis; but eta took the place of a
+double epsilon. The word sophrosune is the salvation (soteria) of that
+wisdom (phronesis) which we were just now considering. Epioteme
+(knowledge) is akin to this, and indicates that the soul which is good
+for anything follows (epetai) the motion of things, neither
+anticipating them nor falling behind them; wherefore the word should
+rather be read as epistemene, inserting epsilon nu. Sunesis
+(understanding) may be regarded in like manner as a kind of conclusion;
+the word is derived from sunienai (to go along with), and, like
+epistasthai (to know), implies the progression of the soul in company
+with the nature of things. Sophia (wisdom) is very dark, and appears
+not to be of native growth; the meaning is, touching the motion or
+stream of things. You must remember that the poets, when they speak of
+the commencement of any rapid motion, often use the word esuthe (he
+rushed); and there was a famous Lacedaemonian who was named Sous
+(Rush), for by this word the Lacedaemonians signify rapid motion, and
+the touching (epaphe) of motion is expressed by sophia, for all things
+are supposed to be in motion. Good (agathon) is the name which is given
+to the admirable (agasto) in nature; for, although all things move,
+still there are degrees of motion; some are swifter, some slower; but
+there are some things which are admirable for their swiftness, and this
+admirable part of nature is called agathon. Dikaiosune (justice) is
+clearly dikaiou sunesis (understanding of the just); but the actual
+word dikaion is more difficult: men are only agreed to a certain extent
+about justice, and then they begin to disagree. For those who suppose
+all things to be in motion conceive the greater part of nature to be a
+mere receptacle; and they say that there is a penetrating power which
+passes through all this, and is the instrument of creation in all, and
+is the subtlest and swiftest element; for if it were not the subtlest,
+and a power which none can keep out, and also the swiftest, passing by
+other things as if they were standing still, it could not penetrate
+through the moving universe. And this element, which superintends all
+things and pierces (diaion) all, is rightly called dikaion; the letter
+k is only added for the sake of euphony. Thus far, as I was saying,
+there is a general agreement about the nature of justice; but I,
+Hermogenes, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery
+that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world:
+now a cause is that because of which anything is created; and some one
+comes and whispers in my ear that justice is rightly so called because
+partaking of the nature of the cause, and I begin, after hearing what
+he has said, to interrogate him gently: “Well, my excellent friend,”
+say I, “but if all this be true, I still want to know what is justice.”
+Thereupon they think that I ask tiresome questions, and am leaping over
+the barriers, and have been already sufficiently answered, and they try
+to satisfy me with one derivation after another, and at length they
+quarrel. For one of them says that justice is the sun, and that he only
+is the piercing (diaionta) and burning (kaonta) element which is the
+guardian of nature. And when I joyfully repeat this beautiful notion, I
+am answered by the satirical remark, “What, is there no justice in the
+world when the sun is down?” And when I earnestly beg my questioner to
+tell me his own honest opinion, he says, “Fire in the abstract”; but
+this is not very intelligible. Another says, “No, not fire in the
+abstract, but the abstraction of heat in the fire.” Another man
+professes to laugh at all this, and says, as Anaxagoras says, that
+justice is mind, for mind, as they say, has absolute power, and mixes
+with nothing, and orders all things, and passes through all things. At
+last, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity about the
+nature of justice than I was before I began to learn. But still I am of
+opinion that the name, which has led me into this digression, was given
+to justice for the reasons which I have mentioned.
+
+HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that you are not improvising now; you
+must have heard this from some one else.
+
+SOCRATES: And not the rest?
+
+HERMOGENES: Hardly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, let me go on in the hope of making you believe in
+the originality of the rest. What remains after justice? I do not think
+that we have as yet discussed courage (andreia),—injustice (adikia),
+which is obviously nothing more than a hindrance to the penetrating
+principle (diaiontos), need not be considered. Well, then, the name of
+andreia seems to imply a battle;—this battle is in the world of
+existence, and according to the doctrine of flux is only the
+counterflux (enantia rhon): if you extract the delta from andreia, the
+name at once signifies the thing, and you may clearly understand that
+andreia is not the stream opposed to every stream, but only to that
+which is contrary to justice, for otherwise courage would not have been
+praised. The words arren (male) and aner (man) also contain a similar
+allusion to the same principle of the upward flux (te ano rhon). Gune
+(woman) I suspect to be the same word as goun (birth): thelu (female)
+appears to be partly derived from thele (the teat), because the teat is
+like rain, and makes things flourish (tethelenai).
+
+HERMOGENES: That is surely probable.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes; and the very word thallein (to flourish) seems to figure
+the growth of youth, which is swift and sudden ever. And this is
+expressed by the legislator in the name, which is a compound of thein
+(running), and allesthai (leaping). Pray observe how I gallop away when
+I get on smooth ground. There are a good many names generally thought
+to be of importance, which have still to be explained.
+
+HERMOGENES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: There is the meaning of the word techne (art), for example.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: That may be identified with echonoe, and expresses the
+possession of mind: you have only to take away the tau and insert two
+omichrons, one between the chi and nu, and another between the nu and
+eta.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is a very shabby etymology.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my dear friend; but then you know that the original
+names have been long ago buried and disguised by people sticking on and
+stripping off letters for the sake of euphony, and twisting and
+bedizening them in all sorts of ways: and time too may have had a share
+in the change. Take, for example, the word katoptron; why is the letter
+rho inserted? This must surely be the addition of some one who cares
+nothing about the truth, but thinks only of putting the mouth into
+shape. And the additions are often such that at last no human being can
+possibly make out the original meaning of the word. Another example is
+the word sphigx, sphiggos, which ought properly to be phigx, phiggos,
+and there are other examples.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is quite true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, if you are permitted to put in and pull out any
+letters which you please, names will be too easily made, and any name
+may be adapted to any object.
+
+HERMOGENES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, that is true. And therefore a wise dictator, like
+yourself, should observe the laws of moderation and probability.
+
+HERMOGENES: Such is my desire.
+
+SOCRATES: And mine, too, Hermogenes. But do not be too much of a
+precisian, or “you will unnerve me of my strength (Iliad.).” When you
+have allowed me to add mechane (contrivance) to techne (art) I shall be
+at the top of my bent, for I conceive mechane to be a sign of great
+accomplishment—anein; for mekos has the meaning of greatness, and these
+two, mekos and anein, make up the word mechane. But, as I was saying,
+being now at the top of my bent, I should like to consider the meaning
+of the two words arete (virtue) and kakia (vice); arete I do not as yet
+understand, but kakia is transparent, and agrees with the principles
+which preceded, for all things being in a flux (ionton), kakia is kakos
+ion (going badly); and this evil motion when existing in the soul has
+the general name of kakia, or vice, specially appropriated to it. The
+meaning of kakos ienai may be further illustrated by the use of deilia
+(cowardice), which ought to have come after andreia, but was forgotten,
+and, as I fear, is not the only word which has been passed over. Deilia
+signifies that the soul is bound with a strong chain (desmos), for lian
+means strength, and therefore deilia expresses the greatest and
+strongest bond of the soul; and aporia (difficulty) is an evil of the
+same nature (from a (alpha) not, and poreuesthai to go), like anything
+else which is an impediment to motion and movement. Then the word kakia
+appears to mean kakos ienai, or going badly, or limping and halting; of
+which the consequence is, that the soul becomes filled with vice. And
+if kakia is the name of this sort of thing, arete will be the opposite
+of it, signifying in the first place ease of motion, then that the
+stream of the good soul is unimpeded, and has therefore the attribute
+of ever flowing without let or hindrance, and is therefore called
+arete, or, more correctly, aeireite (ever-flowing), and may perhaps
+have had another form, airete (eligible), indicating that nothing is
+more eligible than virtue, and this has been hammered into arete. I
+daresay that you will deem this to be another invention of mine, but I
+think that if the previous word kakia was right, then arete is also
+right.
+
+HERMOGENES: But what is the meaning of kakon, which has played so great
+a part in your previous discourse?
+
+SOCRATES: That is a very singular word about which I can hardly form an
+opinion, and therefore I must have recourse to my ingenious device.
+
+HERMOGENES: What device?
+
+SOCRATES: The device of a foreign origin, which I shall give to this
+word also.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very likely you are right; but suppose that we leave these
+words and endeavour to see the rationale of kalon and aischron.
+
+SOCRATES: The meaning of aischron is evident, being only aei ischon
+roes (always preventing from flowing), and this is in accordance with
+our former derivations. For the name-giver was a great enemy to
+stagnation of all sorts, and hence he gave the name aeischoroun to that
+which hindered the flux (aei ischon roun), and that is now beaten
+together into aischron.
+
+HERMOGENES: But what do you say of kalon?
+
+SOCRATES: That is more obscure; yet the form is only due to the
+quantity, and has been changed by altering omicron upsilon into
+omicron.
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: This name appears to denote mind.
+
+HERMOGENES: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: Let me ask you what is the cause why anything has a name; is
+not the principle which imposes the name the cause?
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And must not this be the mind of Gods, or of men, or of both?
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Is not mind that which called (kalesan) things by their
+names, and is not mind the beautiful (kalon)?
+
+HERMOGENES: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: And are not the works of intelligence and mind worthy of
+praise, and are not other works worthy of blame?
+
+HERMOGENES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Physic does the work of a physician, and carpentering does
+the works of a carpenter?
+
+HERMOGENES: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: And the principle of beauty does the works of beauty?
+
+HERMOGENES: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: And that principle we affirm to be mind?
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then mind is rightly called beauty because she does the works
+which we recognize and speak of as the beautiful?
+
+HERMOGENES: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: What more names remain to us?
+
+HERMOGENES: There are the words which are connected with agathon and
+kalon, such as sumpheron and lusiteloun, ophelimon, kerdaleon, and
+their opposites.
+
+SOCRATES: The meaning of sumpheron (expedient) I think that you may
+discover for yourself by the light of the previous examples,—for it is
+a sister word to episteme, meaning just the motion (pora) of the soul
+accompanying the world, and things which are done upon this principle
+are called sumphora or sumpheronta, because they are carried round with
+the world.
+
+HERMOGENES: That is probable.
+
+SOCRATES: Again, cherdaleon (gainful) is called from cherdos (gain),
+but you must alter the delta into nu if you want to get at the meaning;
+for this word also signifies good, but in another way; he who gave the
+name intended to express the power of admixture (kerannumenon) and
+universal penetration in the good; in forming the word, however, he
+inserted a delta instead of a nu, and so made kerdos.
+
+HERMOGENES: Well, but what is lusiteloun (profitable)?
+
+SOCRATES: I suppose, Hermogenes, that people do not mean by the
+profitable the gainful or that which pays (luei) the retailer, but they
+use the word in the sense of swift. You regard the profitable
+(lusiteloun), as that which being the swiftest thing in existence,
+allows of no stay in things and no pause or end of motion, but always,
+if there begins to be any end, lets things go again (luei), and makes
+motion immortal and unceasing: and in this point of view, as appears to
+me, the good is happily denominated lusiteloun—being that which looses
+(luon) the end (telos) of motion. Ophelimon (the advantageous) is
+derived from ophellein, meaning that which creates and increases; this
+latter is a common Homeric word, and has a foreign character.
+
+HERMOGENES: And what do you say of their opposites?
+
+SOCRATES: Of such as are mere negatives I hardly think that I need
+speak.
+
+HERMOGENES: Which are they?
+
+SOCRATES: The words axumphoron (inexpedient), anopheles (unprofitable),
+alusiteles (unadvantageous), akerdes (ungainful).
+
+HERMOGENES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: I would rather take the words blaberon (harmful), zemiodes
+(hurtful).
+
+HERMOGENES: Good.
+
+SOCRATES: The word blaberon is that which is said to hinder or harm
+(blaptein) the stream (roun); blapton is boulomenon aptein (seeking to
+hold or bind); for aptein is the same as dein, and dein is always a
+term of censure; boulomenon aptein roun (wanting to bind the stream)
+would properly be boulapteroun, and this, as I imagine, is improved
+into blaberon.
+
+HERMOGENES: You bring out curious results, Socrates, in the use of
+names; and when I hear the word boulapteroun I cannot help imagining
+that you are making your mouth into a flute, and puffing away at some
+prelude to Athene.
+
+SOCRATES: That is the fault of the makers of the name, Hermogenes; not
+mine.
+
+HERMOGENES: Very true; but what is the derivation of zemiodes?
+
+SOCRATES: What is the meaning of zemiodes?—let me remark, Hermogenes,
+how right I was in saying that great changes are made in the meaning of
+words by putting in and pulling out letters; even a very slight
+permutation will sometimes give an entirely opposite sense; I may
+instance the word deon, which occurs to me at the moment, and reminds
+me of what I was going to say to you, that the fine fashionable
+language of modern times has twisted and disguised and entirely altered
+the original meaning both of deon, and also of zemiodes, which in the
+old language is clearly indicated.
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I will try to explain. You are aware that our forefathers
+loved the sounds iota and delta, especially the women, who are most
+conservative of the ancient language, but now they change iota into eta
+or epsilon, and delta into zeta; this is supposed to increase the
+grandeur of the sound.
+
+HERMOGENES: How do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: For example, in very ancient times they called the day either
+imera or emera (short e), which is called by us emera (long e).
+
+HERMOGENES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you observe that only the ancient form shows the intention
+of the giver of the name? of which the reason is, that men long for
+(imeirousi) and love the light which comes after the darkness, and is
+therefore called imera, from imeros, desire.
+
+HERMOGENES: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: But now the name is so travestied that you cannot tell the
+meaning, although there are some who imagine the day to be called emera
+because it makes things gentle (emera different accents).
+
+HERMOGENES: Such is my view.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you know that the ancients said duogon and not zugon?
+
+HERMOGENES: They did so.
+
+SOCRATES: And zugon (yoke) has no meaning,—it ought to be duogon, which
+word expresses the binding of two together (duein agoge) for the
+purpose of drawing;—this has been changed into zugon, and there are
+many other examples of similar changes.
+
+HERMOGENES: There are.
+
+SOCRATES: Proceeding in the same train of thought I may remark that the
+word deon (obligation) has a meaning which is the opposite of all the
+other appellations of good; for deon is here a species of good, and is,
+nevertheless, the chain (desmos) or hinderer of motion, and therefore
+own brother of blaberon.
+
+HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates; that is quite plain.
+
+SOCRATES: Not if you restore the ancient form, which is more likely to
+be the correct one, and read dion instead of deon; if you convert the
+epsilon into an iota after the old fashion, this word will then agree
+with other words meaning good; for dion, not deon, signifies the good,
+and is a term of praise; and the author of names has not contradicted
+himself, but in all these various appellations, deon (obligatory),
+ophelimon (advantageous), lusiteloun (profitable), kerdaleon (gainful),
+agathon (good), sumpheron (expedient), euporon (plenteous), the same
+conception is implied of the ordering or all-pervading principle which
+is praised, and the restraining and binding principle which is
+censured. And this is further illustrated by the word zemiodes
+(hurtful), which if the zeta is only changed into delta as in the
+ancient language, becomes demiodes; and this name, as you will
+perceive, is given to that which binds motion (dounti ion).
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you say of edone (pleasure), lupe (pain), epithumia
+(desire), and the like, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I do not think, Hermogenes, that there is any great
+difficulty about them—edone is e (eta) onesis, the action which tends
+to advantage; and the original form may be supposed to have been eone,
+but this has been altered by the insertion of the delta. Lupe appears
+to be derived from the relaxation (luein) which the body feels when in
+sorrow; ania (trouble) is the hindrance of motion (alpha and ienai);
+algedon (distress), if I am not mistaken, is a foreign word, which is
+derived from aleinos (grievous); odune (grief) is called from the
+putting on (endusis) sorrow; in achthedon (vexation) “the word too
+labours,” as any one may see; chara (joy) is the very expression of the
+fluency and diffusion of the soul (cheo); terpsis (delight) is so
+called from the pleasure creeping (erpon) through the soul, which may
+be likened to a breath (pnoe) and is properly erpnoun, but has been
+altered by time into terpnon; eupherosune (cheerfulness) and epithumia
+explain themselves; the former, which ought to be eupherosune and has
+been changed euphrosune, is named, as every one may see, from the soul
+moving (pheresthai) in harmony with nature; epithumia is really e epi
+ton thumon iousa dunamis, the power which enters into the soul; thumos
+(passion) is called from the rushing (thuseos) and boiling of the soul;
+imeros (desire) denotes the stream (rous) which most draws the soul dia
+ten esin tes roes—because flowing with desire (iemenos), and expresses
+a longing after things and violent attraction of the soul to them, and
+is termed imeros from possessing this power; pothos (longing) is
+expressive of the desire of that which is not present but absent, and
+in another place (pou); this is the reason why the name pothos is
+applied to things absent, as imeros is to things present; eros (love)
+is so called because flowing in (esron) from without; the stream is not
+inherent, but is an influence introduced through the eyes, and from
+flowing in was called esros (influx) in the old time when they used
+omicron for omega, and is called eros, now that omega is substituted
+for omicron. But why do you not give me another word?
+
+HERMOGENES: What do you think of doxa (opinion), and that class of
+words?
+
+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.
+
+SOCRATES: In the first place, the letter rho appears to me to be the
+general instrument expressing all motion (kinesis). But I have not yet
+explained the meaning of this latter word, which is just iesis (going);
+for the letter eta was not in use among the ancients, who only employed
+epsilon; and the root is kiein, which is a foreign form, the same as
+ienai. And the old word kinesis will be correctly given as iesis in
+corresponding modern letters. Assuming this foreign root kiein, and
+allowing for the change of the eta and the insertion of the nu, we have
+kinesis, which should have been kieinsis or eisis; and stasis is the
+negative of ienai (or eisis), and has been improved into stasis. Now
+the letter rho, as I was saying, appeared to the imposer of names an
+excellent instrument for the expression of motion; and he frequently
+uses the letter for this purpose: for example, in the actual words rein
+and roe he represents motion by rho; also in the words tromos
+(trembling), trachus (rugged); and again, in words such as krouein
+(strike), thrauein (crush), ereikein (bruise), thruptein (break),
+kermatixein (crumble), rumbein (whirl): of all these sorts of movements
+he generally finds an expression in the letter R, because, as I
+imagine, he had observed that the tongue was most agitated and least at
+rest in the pronunciation of this letter, which he therefore used in
+order to express motion, just as by the letter iota he expresses the
+subtle elements which pass through all things. This is why he uses the
+letter iota as imitative of motion, ienai, iesthai. And there is
+another class of letters, phi, psi, sigma, and xi, of which the
+pronunciation is accompanied by great expenditure of breath; these are
+used in the imitation of such notions as psuchron (shivering), xeon
+(seething), seiesthai, (to be shaken), seismos (shock), and are always
+introduced by the giver of names when he wants to imitate what is
+phusodes (windy). He seems to have thought that the closing and
+pressure of the tongue in the utterance of delta and tau was expressive
+of binding and rest in a place: he further observed the liquid movement
+of lambda, in the pronunciation of which the tongue slips, and in this
+he found the expression of smoothness, as in leios (level), and in the
+word oliothanein (to slip) itself, liparon (sleek), in the word
+kollodes (gluey), and the like: the heavier sound of gamma detained the
+slipping tongue, and the union of the two gave the notion of a
+glutinous clammy nature, as in glischros, glukus, gloiodes. The nu he
+observed to be sounded from within, and therefore to have a notion of
+inwardness; hence he introduced the sound in endos and entos: alpha he
+assigned to the expression of size, and nu of length, because they are
+great letters: omicron was the sign of roundness, and therefore there
+is plenty of omicron mixed up in the word goggulon (round). Thus did
+the legislator, reducing all things into letters and syllables, and
+impressing on them names and signs, and out of them by imitation
+compounding other signs. That is my view, Hermogenes, of the truth of
+names; but I should like to hear what Cratylus has more to say.
+
+HERMOGENES: But, Socrates, as I was telling you before, Cratylus
+mystifies me; he says that there is a fitness of names, but he never
+explains what is this fitness, so that I cannot tell whether his
+obscurity is intended or not. Tell me now, Cratylus, here in the
+presence of Socrates, do you agree in what Socrates has been saying
+about names, or have you something better of your own? and if you have,
+tell me what your view is, and then you will either learn of Socrates,
+or Socrates and I will learn of you.
+
+CRATYLUS: Well, but surely, Hermogenes, you do not suppose that you can
+learn, or I explain, any subject of importance all in a moment; at any
+rate, not such a subject as language, which is, perhaps, the very
+greatest of all.
+
+HERMOGENES: No, indeed; but, as Hesiod says, and I agree with him, “to
+add little to little” is worth while. And, therefore, if you think that
+you can add anything at all, however small, to our knowledge, take a
+little trouble and oblige Socrates, and me too, who certainly have a
+claim upon you.
+
+SOCRATES: I am by no means positive, Cratylus, in the view which
+Hermogenes and myself have worked out; and therefore do not hesitate to
+say what you think, which if it be better than my own view I shall
+gladly accept. And I should not be at all surprized to find that you
+have found some better notion. For you have evidently reflected on
+these matters and have had teachers, and if you have really a better
+theory of the truth of names, you may count me in the number of your
+disciples.
+
+CRATYLUS: You are right, Socrates, in saying that I have made a study
+of these matters, and I might possibly convert you into a disciple. But
+I fear that the opposite is more probable, and I already find myself
+moved to say to you what Achilles in the “Prayers” says to Ajax,—
+
+“Illustrious Ajax, son of Telamon, lord of the people, You appear to
+have spoken in all things much to my mind.”
+
+And you, Socrates, appear to me to be an oracle, and to give answers
+much to my mind, whether you are inspired by Euthyphro, or whether some
+Muse may have long been an inhabitant of your breast, unconsciously to
+yourself.
+
+SOCRATES: Excellent Cratylus, I have long been wondering at my own
+wisdom; I cannot trust myself. And I think that I ought to stop and ask
+myself What am I saying? for there is nothing worse than
+self-deception—when the deceiver is always at home and always with
+you—it is quite terrible, and therefore I ought often to retrace my
+steps and endeavour to “look fore and aft,” in the words of the
+aforesaid Homer. And now let me see; where are we? Have we not been
+saying that the correct name indicates the nature of the thing:—has
+this proposition been sufficiently proven?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, Socrates, what you say, as I am disposed to think, is
+quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Names, then, are given in order to instruct?
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And naming is an art, and has artificers?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And who are they?
+
+CRATYLUS: The legislators, of whom you spoke at first.
+
+SOCRATES: And does this art grow up among men like other arts? Let me
+explain what I mean: of painters, some are better and some worse?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The better painters execute their works, I mean their
+figures, better, and the worse execute them worse; and of builders
+also, the better sort build fairer houses, and the worse build them
+worse.
+
+CRATYLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And among legislators, there are some who do their work
+better and some worse?
+
+CRATYLUS: No; there I do not agree with you.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you do not think that some laws are better and others
+worse?
+
+CRATYLUS: No, indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: Or that one name is better than another?
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then all names are rightly imposed?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, if they are names at all.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, what do you say to the name of our friend Hermogenes,
+which was mentioned before:—assuming that he has nothing of the nature
+of Hermes in him, shall we say that this is a wrong name, or not his
+name at all?
+
+CRATYLUS: I should reply that Hermogenes is not his name at all, but
+only appears to be his, and is really the name of somebody else, who
+has the nature which corresponds to it.
+
+SOCRATES: And if a man were to call him Hermogenes, would he not be
+even speaking falsely? For there may be a doubt whether you can call
+him Hermogenes, if he is not.
+
+CRATYLUS: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: Are you maintaining that falsehood is impossible? For if this
+is your meaning I should answer, that there have been plenty of liars
+in all ages.
+
+CRATYLUS: Why, Socrates, how can a man say that which is not?—say
+something and yet say nothing? For is not falsehood saying the thing
+which is not?
+
+SOCRATES: Your argument, friend, is too subtle for a man of my age. But
+I should like to know whether you are one of those philosophers who
+think that falsehood may be spoken but not said?
+
+CRATYLUS: Neither spoken nor said.
+
+SOCRATES: Nor uttered nor addressed? For example: If a person, saluting
+you in a foreign country, were to take your hand and say: “Hail,
+Athenian stranger, Hermogenes, son of Smicrion”—these words, whether
+spoken, said, uttered, or addressed, would have no application to you
+but only to our friend Hermogenes, or perhaps to nobody at all?
+
+CRATYLUS: In my opinion, Socrates, the speaker would only be talking
+nonsense.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but that will be quite enough for me, if you will tell
+me whether the nonsense would be true or false, or partly true and
+partly false:—which is all that I want to know.
+
+CRATYLUS: I should say that he would be putting himself in motion to no
+purpose; and that his words would be an unmeaning sound like the noise
+of hammering at a brazen pot.
+
+SOCRATES: But let us see, Cratylus, whether we cannot find a
+meeting-point, for you would admit that the name is not the same with
+the thing named?
+
+CRATYLUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you further acknowledge that the name is an
+imitation of the thing?
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would say that pictures are also imitations of
+things, but in another way?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: I believe you may be right, but I do not rightly understand
+you. Please to say, then, whether both sorts of imitation (I mean both
+pictures or words) are not equally attributable and applicable to the
+things of which they are the imitation.
+
+CRATYLUS: They are.
+
+SOCRATES: First look at the matter thus: you may attribute the likeness
+of the man to the man, and of the woman to the woman; and so on?
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And conversely you may attribute the likeness of the man to
+the woman, and of the woman to the man?
+
+CRATYLUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And are both modes of assigning them right, or only the
+first?
+
+CRATYLUS: Only the first.
+
+SOCRATES: That is to say, the mode of assignment which attributes to
+each that which belongs to them and is like them?
+
+CRATYLUS: That is my view.
+
+SOCRATES: Now then, as I am desirous that we being friends should have
+a good understanding about the argument, let me state my view to you:
+the first mode of assignment, whether applied to figures or to names, I
+call right, and when applied to names only, true as well as right; and
+the other mode of giving and assigning the name which is unlike, I call
+wrong, and in the case of names, false as well as wrong.
+
+CRATYLUS: That may be true, Socrates, in the case of pictures; they may
+be wrongly assigned; but not in the case of names—they must be always
+right.
+
+SOCRATES: Why, what is the difference? May I not go to a man and say to
+him, “This is your picture,” showing him his own likeness, or perhaps
+the likeness of a woman; and when I say “show,” I mean bring before the
+sense of sight.
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And may I not go to him again, and say, “This is your
+name”?—for the name, like the picture, is an imitation. May I not say
+to him—“This is your name”? and may I not then bring to his sense of
+hearing the imitation of himself, when I say, “This is a man”; or of a
+female of the human species, when I say, “This is a woman,” as the case
+may be? Is not all that quite possible?
+
+CRATYLUS: I would fain agree with you, Socrates; and therefore I say,
+Granted.
+
+SOCRATES: That is very good of you, if I am right, which need hardly be
+disputed at present. But if I can assign names as well as pictures to
+objects, the right assignment of them we may call truth, and the wrong
+assignment of them falsehood. Now if there be such a wrong assignment
+of names, there may also be a wrong or inappropriate assignment of
+verbs; and if of names and verbs then of the sentences, which are made
+up of them. What do you say, Cratylus?
+
+CRATYLUS: I agree; and think that what you say is very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And further, primitive nouns may be compared to pictures, and
+in pictures you may either give all the appropriate colours and
+figures, or you may not give them all—some may be wanting; or there may
+be too many or too much of them—may there not?
+
+CRATYLUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who gives all gives a perfect picture or figure; and
+he who takes away or adds also gives a picture or figure, but not a
+good one.
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: In like manner, he who by syllables and letters imitates the
+nature of things, if he gives all that is appropriate will produce a
+good image, or in other words a name; but if he subtracts or perhaps
+adds a little, he will make an image but not a good one; whence I infer
+that some names are well and others ill made.
+
+CRATYLUS: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the artist of names may be sometimes good, or he may be
+bad?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And this artist of names is called the legislator?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then like other artists the legislator may be good or he may
+be bad; it must surely be so if our former admissions hold good?
+
+CRATYLUS: Very true, Socrates; but the case of language, you see, is
+different; for when by the help of grammar we assign the letters alpha
+or beta, or any other letters to a certain name, then, if we add, or
+subtract, or misplace a letter, the name which is written is not only
+written wrongly, but not written at all; and in any of these cases
+becomes other than a name.
+
+SOCRATES: But I doubt whether your view is altogether correct,
+Cratylus.
+
+CRATYLUS: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: I believe that what you say may be true about numbers, which
+must be just what they are, or not be at all; for example, the number
+ten at once becomes other than ten if a unit be added or subtracted,
+and so of any other number: but this does not apply to that which is
+qualitative or to anything which is represented under an image. I
+should say rather that the image, if expressing in every point the
+entire reality, would no longer be an image. Let us suppose the
+existence of two objects: one of them shall be Cratylus, and the other
+the image of Cratylus; and we will suppose, further, that some God
+makes not only a representation such as a painter would make of your
+outward form and colour, but also creates an inward organization like
+yours, having the same warmth and softness; and into this infuses
+motion, and soul, and mind, such as you have, and in a word copies all
+your qualities, and places them by you in another form; would you say
+that this was Cratylus and the image of Cratylus, or that there were
+two Cratyluses?
+
+CRATYLUS: I should say that there were two Cratyluses.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you see, my friend, that we must find some other
+principle of truth in images, and also in names; and not insist that an
+image is no longer an image when something is added or subtracted. Do
+you not perceive that images are very far from having qualities which
+are the exact counterpart of the realities which they represent?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, I see.
+
+SOCRATES: But then how ridiculous would be the effect of names on
+things, if they were exactly the same with them! For they would be the
+doubles of them, and no one would be able to determine which were the
+names and which were the realities.
+
+CRATYLUS: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then fear not, but have the courage to admit that one name
+may be correctly and another incorrectly given; and do not insist that
+the name shall be exactly the same with the thing; but allow the
+occasional substitution of a wrong letter, and if of a letter also of a
+noun in a sentence, and if of a noun in a sentence also of a sentence
+which is not appropriate to the matter, and acknowledge that the thing
+may be named, and described, so long as the general character of the
+thing which you are describing is retained; and this, as you will
+remember, was remarked by Hermogenes and myself in the particular
+instance of the names of the letters.
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, I remember.
+
+SOCRATES: Good; and when the general character is preserved, even if
+some of the proper letters are wanting, still the thing is
+signified;—well, if all the letters are given; not well, when only a
+few of them are given. I think that we had better admit this, lest we
+be punished like travellers in Aegina who wander about the street late
+at night: and be likewise told by truth herself that we have arrived
+too late; or if not, you must find out some new notion of correctness
+of names, and no longer maintain that a name is the expression of a
+thing in letters or syllables; for if you say both, you will be
+inconsistent with yourself.
+
+CRATYLUS: I quite acknowledge, Socrates, what you say to be very
+reasonable.
+
+SOCRATES: Then as we are agreed thus far, let us ask ourselves whether
+a name rightly imposed ought not to have the proper letters.
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the proper letters are those which are like the things?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Enough then of names which are rightly given. And in names
+which are incorrectly given, the greater part may be supposed to be
+made up of proper and similar letters, or there would be no likeness;
+but there will be likewise a part which is improper and spoils the
+beauty and formation of the word: you would admit that?
+
+CRATYLUS: There would be no use, Socrates, in my quarrelling with you,
+since I cannot be satisfied that a name which is incorrectly given is a
+name at all.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you admit a name to be the representation of a thing?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, I do.
+
+SOCRATES: But do you not allow that some nouns are primitive, and some
+derived?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Then if you admit that primitive or first nouns are
+representations of things, is there any better way of framing
+representations than by assimilating them to the objects as much as you
+can; or do you prefer the notion of Hermogenes and of many others, who
+say that names are conventional, and have a meaning to those who have
+agreed about them, and who have previous knowledge of the things
+intended by them, and that convention is the only principle; and
+whether you abide by our present convention, or make a new and opposite
+one, according to which you call small great and great small—that, they
+would say, makes no difference, if you are only agreed. Which of these
+two notions do you prefer?
+
+CRATYLUS: Representation by likeness, Socrates, is infinitely better
+than representation by any chance sign.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good: but if the name is to be like the thing, the
+letters out of which the first names are composed must also be like
+things. Returning to the image of the picture, I would ask, How could
+any one ever compose a picture which would be like anything at all, if
+there were not pigments in nature which resembled the things imitated,
+and out of which the picture is composed?
+
+CRATYLUS: Impossible.
+
+SOCRATES: No more could names ever resemble any actually existing
+thing, unless the original elements of which they are compounded bore
+some degree of resemblance to the objects of which the names are the
+imitation: And the original elements are letters?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me now invite you to consider what Hermogenes and I were
+saying about sounds. Do you agree with me that the letter rho is
+expressive of rapidity, motion, and hardness? Were we right or wrong in
+saying so?
+
+CRATYLUS: I should say that you were right.
+
+SOCRATES: And that lamda was expressive of smoothness, and softness,
+and the like?
+
+CRATYLUS: There again you were right.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, as you are aware, that which is called by us
+sklerotes, is by the Eretrians called skleroter.
+
+CRATYLUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: But are the letters rho and sigma equivalents; and is there
+the same significance to them in the termination rho, which there is to
+us in sigma, or is there no significance to one of us?
+
+CRATYLUS: Nay, surely there is a significance to both of us.
+
+SOCRATES: In as far as they are like, or in as far as they are unlike?
+
+CRATYLUS: In as far as they are like.
+
+SOCRATES: Are they altogether alike?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes; for the purpose of expressing motion.
+
+SOCRATES: And what do you say of the insertion of the lamda? for that
+is expressive not of hardness but of softness.
+
+CRATYLUS: Why, perhaps the letter lamda is wrongly inserted, Socrates,
+and should be altered into rho, as you were saying to Hermogenes and in
+my opinion rightly, when you spoke of adding and subtracting letters
+upon occasion.
+
+SOCRATES: Good. But still the word is intelligible to both of us; when
+I say skleros (hard), you know what I mean.
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, my dear friend, and the explanation of that is custom.
+
+SOCRATES: And what is custom but convention? I utter a sound which I
+understand, and you know that I understand the meaning of the sound:
+this is what you are saying?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if when I speak you know my meaning, there is an
+indication given by me to you?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: This indication of my meaning may proceed from unlike as well
+as from like, for example in the lamda of sklerotes. But if this is
+true, then you have made a convention with yourself, and the
+correctness of a name turns out to be convention, since letters which
+are unlike are indicative equally with those which are like, if they
+are sanctioned by custom and convention. And even supposing that you
+distinguish custom from convention ever so much, still you must say
+that the signification of words is given by custom and not by likeness,
+for custom may indicate by the unlike as well as by the like. But as we
+are agreed thus far, Cratylus (for I shall assume that your silence
+gives consent), then custom and convention must be supposed to
+contribute to the indication of our thoughts; for suppose we take the
+instance of number, how can you ever imagine, my good friend, that you
+will find names resembling every individual number, unless you allow
+that which you term convention and agreement to have authority in
+determining the correctness of names? I quite agree with you that words
+should as far as possible resemble things; but I fear that this
+dragging in of resemblance, as Hermogenes says, is a shabby thing,
+which has to be supplemented by the mechanical aid of convention with a
+view to correctness; for I believe that if we could always, or almost
+always, use likenesses, which are perfectly appropriate, this would be
+the most perfect state of language; as the opposite is the most
+imperfect. But let me ask you, what is the force of names, and what is
+the use of them?
+
+CRATYLUS: The use of names, Socrates, as I should imagine, is to
+inform: the simple truth is, that he who knows names knows also the
+things which are expressed by them.
+
+SOCRATES: I suppose you mean to say, Cratylus, that as the name is, so
+also is the thing; and that he who knows the one will also know the
+other, because they are similars, and all similars fall under the same
+art or science; and therefore you would say that he who knows names
+will also know things.
+
+CRATYLUS: That is precisely what I mean.
+
+SOCRATES: But let us consider what is the nature of this information
+about things which, according to you, is given us by names. Is it the
+best sort of information? or is there any other? What do you say?
+
+CRATYLUS: I believe that to be both the only and the best sort of
+information about them; there can be no other.
+
+SOCRATES: But do you believe that in the discovery of them, he who
+discovers the names discovers also the things; or is this only the
+method of instruction, and is there some other method of enquiry and
+discovery.
+
+CRATYLUS: I certainly believe that the methods of enquiry and discovery
+are of the same nature as instruction.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but do you not see, Cratylus, that he who follows names
+in the search after things, and analyses their meaning, is in great
+danger of being deceived?
+
+CRATYLUS: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: Why clearly he who first gave names gave them according to
+his conception of the things which they signified—did he not?
+
+CRATYLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if his conception was erroneous, and he gave names
+according to his conception, in what position shall we who are his
+followers find ourselves? Shall we not be deceived by him?
+
+CRATYLUS: But, Socrates, am I not right in thinking that he must surely
+have known; or else, as I was saying, his names would not be names at
+all? And you have a clear proof that he has not missed the truth, and
+the proof is—that he is perfectly consistent. Did you ever observe in
+speaking that all the words which you utter have a common character and
+purpose?
+
+SOCRATES: But that, friend Cratylus, is no answer. For if he did begin
+in error, he may have forced the remainder into agreement with the
+original error and with himself; there would be nothing strange in
+this, any more than in geometrical diagrams, which have often a slight
+and invisible flaw in the first part of the process, and are
+consistently mistaken in the long deductions which follow. And this is
+the reason why every man should expend his chief thought and attention
+on the consideration of his first principles:—are they or are they not
+rightly laid down? and when he has duly sifted them, all the rest will
+follow. Now I should be astonished to find that names are really
+consistent. And here let us revert to our former discussion: Were we
+not saying that all things are in motion and progress and flux, and
+that this idea of motion is expressed by names? Do you not conceive
+that to be the meaning of them?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes; that is assuredly their meaning, and the true meaning.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us revert to episteme (knowledge) and observe how
+ambiguous this word is, seeming rather to signify stopping the soul at
+things than going round with them; and therefore we should leave the
+beginning as at present, and not reject the epsilon, but make an
+insertion of an iota instead of an epsilon (not pioteme, but
+epiisteme). Take another example: bebaion (sure) is clearly the
+expression of station and position, and not of motion. Again, the word
+istoria (enquiry) bears upon the face of it the stopping (istanai) of
+the stream; and the word piston (faithful) certainly indicates
+cessation of motion; then, again, mneme (memory), as any one may see,
+expresses rest in the soul, and not motion. Moreover, words such as
+amartia and sumphora, which have a bad sense, viewed in the light of
+their etymologies will be the same as sunesis and episteme and other
+words which have a good sense (compare omartein, sunienai, epesthai,
+sumpheresthai); and much the same may be said of amathia and akolasia,
+for amathia may be explained as e ama theo iontos poreia, and akolasia
+as e akolouthia tois pragmasin. Thus the names which in these instances
+we find to have the worst sense, will turn out to be framed on the same
+principle as those which have the best. And any one I believe who would
+take the trouble might find many other examples in which the giver of
+names indicates, not that things are in motion or progress, but that
+they are at rest; which is the opposite of motion.
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes, Socrates, but observe; the greater number express
+motion.
+
+SOCRATES: What of that, Cratylus? Are we to count them like votes? and
+is correctness of names the voice of the majority? Are we to say of
+whichever sort there are most, those are the true ones?
+
+CRATYLUS: No; that is not reasonable.
+
+SOCRATES: Certainly not. But let us have done with this question and
+proceed to another, about which I should like to know whether you think
+with me. Were we not lately acknowledging that the first givers of
+names in states, both Hellenic and barbarous, were the legislators, and
+that the art which gave names was the art of the legislator?
+
+CRATYLUS: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Tell me, then, did the first legislators, who were the givers
+of the first names, know or not know the things which they named?
+
+CRATYLUS: They must have known, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Why, yes, friend Cratylus, they could hardly have been
+ignorant.
+
+CRATYLUS: I should say not.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us return to the point from which we digressed. You were
+saying, if you remember, that he who gave names must have known the
+things which he named; are you still of that opinion?
+
+CRATYLUS: I am.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you say that the giver of the first names had also
+a knowledge of the things which he named?
+
+CRATYLUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: But how could he have learned or discovered things from names
+if the primitive names were not yet given? For, if we are correct in
+our view, the only way of learning and discovering things, is either to
+discover names for ourselves or to learn them from others.
+
+CRATYLUS: I think that there is a good deal in what you say, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But if things are only to be known through names, how can we
+suppose that the givers of names had knowledge, or were legislators
+before there were names at all, and therefore before they could have
+known them?
+
+CRATYLUS: I believe, Socrates, the true account of the matter to be,
+that a power more than human gave things their first names, and that
+the names which are thus given are necessarily their true names.
+
+SOCRATES: Then how came the giver of the names, if he was an inspired
+being or God, to contradict himself? For were we not saying just now
+that he made some names expressive of rest and others of motion? Were
+we mistaken?
+
+CRATYLUS: But I suppose one of the two not to be names at all.
+
+SOCRATES: And which, then, did he make, my good friend; those which are
+expressive of rest, or those which are expressive of motion? This is a
+point which, as I said before, cannot be determined by counting them.
+
+CRATYLUS: No; not in that way, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But if this is a battle of names, some of them asserting that
+they are like the truth, others contending that THEY are, how or by
+what criterion are we to decide between them? For there are no other
+names to which appeal can be made, but obviously recourse must be had
+to another standard which, without employing names, will make clear
+which of the two are right; and this must be a standard which shows the
+truth of things.
+
+CRATYLUS: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: But if that is true, Cratylus, then I suppose that things may
+be known without names?
+
+CRATYLUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: But how would you expect to know them? What other way can
+there be of knowing them, except the true and natural way, through
+their affinities, when they are akin to each other, and through
+themselves? For that which is other and different from them must
+signify something other and different from them.
+
+CRATYLUS: What you are saying is, I think, true.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but reflect; have we not several times acknowledged
+that names rightly given are the likenesses and images of the things
+which they name?
+
+CRATYLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us suppose that to any extent you please you can learn
+things through the medium of names, and suppose also that you can learn
+them from the things themselves—which is likely to be the nobler and
+clearer way; to learn of the image, whether the image and the truth of
+which the image is the expression have been rightly conceived, or to
+learn of the truth whether the truth and the image of it have been duly
+executed?
+
+CRATYLUS: I should say that we must learn of the truth.
+
+SOCRATES: How real existence is to be studied or discovered is, I
+suspect, beyond you and me. But we may admit so much, that the
+knowledge of things is not to be derived from names. No; they must be
+studied and investigated in themselves.
+
+CRATYLUS: Clearly, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: There is another point. I should not like us to be imposed
+upon by the appearance of such a multitude of names, all tending in the
+same direction. I myself do not deny that the givers of names did
+really give them under the idea that all things were in motion and
+flux; which was their sincere but, I think, mistaken opinion. And
+having fallen into a kind of whirlpool themselves, they are carried
+round, and want to drag us in after them. There is a matter, master
+Cratylus, about which I often dream, and should like to ask your
+opinion: Tell me, whether there is or is not any absolute beauty or
+good, or any other absolute existence?
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly, Socrates, I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let us seek the true beauty: not asking whether a face
+is fair, or anything of that sort, for all such things appear to be in
+a flux; but let us ask whether the true beauty is not always beautiful.
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And can we rightly speak of a beauty which is always passing
+away, and is first this and then that; must not the same thing be born
+and retire and vanish while the word is in our mouths?
+
+CRATYLUS: Undoubtedly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then how can that be a real thing which is never in the same
+state? for obviously things which are the same cannot change while they
+remain the same; and if they are always the same and in the same state,
+and never depart from their original form, they can never change or be
+moved.
+
+CRATYLUS: Certainly they cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: Nor yet can they be known by any one; for at the moment that
+the observer approaches, then they become other and of another nature,
+so that you cannot get any further in knowing their nature or state,
+for you cannot know that which has no state.
+
+CRATYLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Nor can we reasonably say, Cratylus, that there is knowledge
+at all, if everything is in a state of transition and there is nothing
+abiding; for knowledge too cannot continue to be knowledge unless
+continuing always to abide and exist. But if the very nature of
+knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no
+knowledge; and if the transition is always going on, there will always
+be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to
+know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is
+known exists ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing
+also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process or
+flux, as we were just now supposing. Whether there is this eternal
+nature in things, or whether the truth is what Heracleitus and his
+followers and many others say, is a question hard to determine; and no
+man of sense will like to put himself or the education of his mind in
+the power of names: neither will he so far trust names or the givers of
+names as to be confident in any knowledge which condemns himself and
+other existences to an unhealthy state of unreality; he will not
+believe that all things leak like a pot, or imagine that the world is a
+man who has a running at the nose. This may be true, Cratylus, but is
+also very likely to be untrue; and therefore I would not have you be
+too easily persuaded of it. Reflect well and like a man, and do not
+easily accept such a doctrine; for you are young and of an age to
+learn. And when you have found the truth, come and tell me.
+
+CRATYLUS: I will do as you say, though I can assure you, Socrates, that
+I have been considering the matter already, and the result of a great
+deal of trouble and consideration is that I incline to Heracleitus.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, another day, my friend, when you come back, you shall
+give me a lesson; but at present, go into the country, as you are
+intending, and Hermogenes shall set you on your way.
+
+CRATYLUS: Very good, Socrates; I hope, however, that you will continue
+to think about these things yourself.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRATYLUS ***
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