thydemus, that all
things equally belong to all men at the same moment and always; for
neither on his view can there be some good and others bad, if virtue and
vice are always equally to be attributed to all.

HERMOGENES: There cannot.

SOCRATES: But if neither is right, and things are not relative to
individuals, and all things do not equally belong to all at the same
moment and always, they must be supposed to have their own proper and
permanent essence: they are not in relation to us, or influenced by
us, fluctuating according to our fancy, but they are independent, and
maintain to their own essence the relation prescribed by nature.

HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that you have said the truth.

SOCRATES: Does what I am saying apply only to the things themselves, or
equally to the actions which proceed from them? Are not actions also a
class of being?

HERMOGENES: Yes, the actions are real as well as the things.

SOCRATES: Then the actions also are done according to their proper
nature, and not according to our opinion of them? In cutting, for
example, we do not cut as we please, and with any chance instrument;
but we cut with the proper instrument only, and according to the natural
process of cutting; and the natural process is right and will succeed,
but any other will fail and be of no use at all.

HERMOGENES: I should say that the natural way is the right way.

SOCRATES: Again, in burning, not every way is the right way; but the
right way is the natural way, and the right instrument the natural
instrument.

HERMOGENES: True.

SOCRATES: And this holds good of all actions?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And speech is a kind of action?

HERMOGENES: True.

SOCRATES: And will a man speak correctly who speaks as he pleases? Will
not the successful speaker rather be he who speaks in the natural way
of speaking, and as things ought to be spoken, and with the natural
instrument? Any other mode of speaking will result in error and failure.

HERMOGENES: I quite agree with you.

SOCRATES: And is not naming a part of speaking? for in giving names men
speak.

HERMOGENES: That is true.

SOCRATES: And if speaking is a sort of action and has a relation to
acts, is not naming also a sort of action?

HERMOGENES: True.

SOCRATES: And we saw that actions were not relative to ourselves, but
had a special nature of their own?

HERMOGENES: Precisely.

SOCRATES: Then the argument would lead us to infer that na