Cratylus (433)

Cratylus. Yes, I remember.

Socrates. Very well, then. So long as this intrinsic quality is present, even though the name have not all the proper letters, the thing will still be named; well, when it has all the proper letters; badly, when it has only a few of them. Let us, then, grant this, my friend, or we shall get into trouble, like the belated night wanderers in the road at Aegina,[*] and in very truth we shall be found to have arrived too late; otherwise you must look for some other principle of correctness in names, and must not admit that a name is the representation of a thing in syllables and letters. For if you maintain both positions, you cannot help contradicting yourself.

Cratylus. Well, Socrates, I think what you say is reasonable, and I accept it.

Socrates. Then since we are agreed about this, let us consider the next point. If a name, we say, is to be a good one, it must have the proper letters?

Cratylus. Yes.

Socrates. And the proper letters are those which are like the things named?

Cratylus. Yes, certainly.

Socrates. That is, then, the method by which wellgiven names are given. But if any name is not well given, the greater part of it may perhaps, if it is to be an image at all, be made up of proper and like letters, but it may contain some inappropriate element, and is on that account not good or well made. Is that our view?

Cratylus. I suppose, Socrates, there is no use in keeping up my contention; but I am not satisfied that it can be a name and not be well given.

Socrates. Are you not satisfied that the name is the representation of a thing?

Cratylus. Yes.

Socrates. And do you not think it is true that some names are composed of earlier ones and others are primary?

Cratylus. Yes.

Socrates. But if the primary names are to be representations of any things, can you suggest any better way of making them representations than by making them as much as possible like the things which they are to represent? Or do you prefer the theory advanced by Hermogenes and many others, who claim that names are conventional and represent things to those who established the convention and knew the things beforehand, and that convention is the sole principle of correctness in names, and it makes no difference whether we accept the existing convention or adopt an opposite one according to which small would be called great and great small? Which of these two theories do you prefer?