er, 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