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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cratylus, by Plato
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: Cratylus
+
+Author: Plato
+
+Translator: B. Jowett
+
+Posting Date: September 26, 2008 [EBook #1616]
+Release Date: January, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRATYLUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+CRATYLUS
+
+By Plato
+
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+
+
+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. (Compare W.
+Humboldt, 'Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues;' M.
+Muller, 'Lectures on the Science of Language;' Steinthal, 'Einleitung in
+die Psychologie und Sprachwissenschaft.')
+
+
+*****
+
+
+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, in expressive, 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. (Compare again W. Humboldt, 'Ueber die Verschiedenheit des
+menschlichen Sprachbaues;' M. Muller, '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 of Cratylus, by Plato
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