Cratylus (397)

Hermogenes. I agree, for I should be very glad to hear the rest of the talk about names.

Socrates. Very well. Then since we have outlined a general plan of investigation, where shall we begin, that we may discover whether the names themselves will bear witness that they are not at all distributed at haphazard, but have a certain correctness? Now the names of heroes and men might perhaps prove deceptive; for they are often given because they were names of ancestors, and in some cases, as we said in the beginning, they are quite inappropriate; many, too, are given as the expression of a prayer, such as Eutychides (fortunate), Sosias (saviour), Theophilus (beloved of God), and many others. I think we had better disregard such as these; but we are most likely to find the correct names in the nature of the eternal and absolute; for there the names ought to have been given with the greatest care, and perhaps some of them were given by a power more divine than is that of men.

Hermogenes. I think you are right, Socrates.

Socrates. Then is it not proper to begin with the gods and see how the gods are rightly called by that name?

Hermogenes. That is reasonable.

Socrates. Something of this sort, then, is what I suspect: I think the earliest men in Greece believed only in those gods in whom many foreigners believe today— sun, moon, earth, stars, and sky. They saw that all these were always moving in their courses and running, and so they called them gods (θεούς) from this running (θεῖν) nature; then afterwards, when they gained knowledge of the other gods, they called them all by the same name. Is that likely to be true, or not?

Hermogenes. Yes, very likely.

Socrates. What shall we consider next?

Hermogenes. Spirits, obviously.

Socrates. Hermogenes, what does the name spirits really mean? See if you think there is anything in what I am going to say.

Hermogenes. Go on and say it.

Socrates. Do you remember who Hesiod says the spirits are?

Hermogenes. I do not recall it.

Socrates. Nor that he says a golden race was the first race of men to be born?

Hermogenes. Yes, I do know that.