the woman, and of the woman to the man?

CRATYLUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And are both modes of assigning them right, or only the first?

CRATYLUS: Only the first.

SOCRATES: That is to say, the mode of assignment which attributes to
each that which belongs to them and is like them?

CRATYLUS: That is my view.

SOCRATES: Now then, as I am desirous that we being friends should have a
good understanding about the argument, let me state my view to you: the
first mode of assignment, whether applied to figures or to names, I call
right, and when applied to names only, true as well as right; and the
other mode of giving and assigning the name which is unlike, I call
wrong, and in the case of names, false as well as wrong.

CRATYLUS: That may be true, Socrates, in the case of pictures; they may
be wrongly assigned; but not in the case of names--they must be always
right.

SOCRATES: Why, what is the difference? May I not go to a man and say to
him, 'This is your picture,' showing him his own likeness, or perhaps
the likeness of a woman; and when I say 'show,' I mean bring before the
sense of sight.

CRATYLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And may I not go to him again, and say, 'This is your
name'?--for the name, like the picture, is an imitation. May I not say
to him--'This is your name'? and may I not then bring to his sense of
hearing the imitation of himself, when I say, 'This is a man'; or of a
female of the human species, when I say, 'This is a woman,' as the case
may be? Is not all that quite possible?

CRATYLUS: I would fain agree with you, Socrates; and therefore I say,
Granted.

SOCRATES: That is very good of you, if I am right, which need hardly be
disputed at present. But if I can assign names as well as pictures to
objects, the right assignment of them we may call truth, and the wrong
assignment of them falsehood. Now if there be such a wrong assignment of
names, there may also be a wrong or inappropriate assignment of verbs;
and if of names and verbs then of the sentences, which are made up of
them. What do you say, Cratylus?

CRATYLUS: I agree; and think that what you say is very true.

SOCRATES: And further, primitive nouns may be compared to pictures, and
in pictures you may either give all the appropriate colours and figures,
or you may not give them all--some may be wanting; or there may be too
many or too much of them--may there not?

CRATYLUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And he who gives all gives a