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