Cratylus (434)

Cratylus. Representing by likeness the thing represented is absolutely and entirely superior to representation by chance signs.

Socrates. You are right. Then if the name is like the thing, the letters of which the primary names are to be formed must be by their very nature like the things, must they not? Let me explain. Could a painting, to revert to our previous comparison, ever be made like any real thing, if there were no pigments out of which the painting is composed, which were by their nature like the objects which the painter’s art imitates? Is not that impossible?

Cratylus. Yes, it is impossible.

Socrates. In the same way, names can never be like anything unless those elements of which the names are composed exist in the first place and possess some kind of likeness to the things which the names imitate; and the elements of which they are composed are the letters, are they not?

Cratylus. Yes.

Socrates. Then I must now ask you to consider with me the subject which Hermogenes and I discussed a while ago. Do you think I am right in saying that rho is expressive of speed, motion, and hardness, or not?

Cratylus. You are right.

Socrates. And lambda is like smoothness, softness, and the other qualities we mentioned?

Cratylus. Yes.

Socrates. You know, of course, that we call the same thing σκληρότης (hardness) which the Eretrians call σκληρότηρ?

Cratylus. Certainly.

Socrates. Have rho and sigma both a likeness to the same thing, and does the final rho mean to them just what the sigma means to us, or is there to one of us no meaning?

Cratylus. They mean the same to both.

Socrates. In so far as rho and sigma are alike, or in so far as they are not?

Cratylus. In so far as they are alike.

Socrates. And are they alike in all respects?

Cratylus. Yes; at least for the purpose of expressing motion equally.

Socrates. But how about the lambda in σκληρότης? Does it not express the opposite of hardness?

Cratylus. Well, perhaps it has no right to be there, Socrates; it may be like the cases that came up in your talk with Hermogenes, when you removed or inserted letters where that was necessary. I think you did right; and in this case perhaps we ought to put a rho in place of the lambda.

Socrates. Excellent. However, do we not understand one another when anyone says σκληρόν, using the present pronunciation, and do you not now know what I mean?

Cratylus. Yes, but that is by custom, my friend.

Socrates. In saying custom do you think you are saying anything different from convention? Do you not mean by convention that when I speak I have a definite meaning and you recognize that I have that meaning? Is not that what you mean?