perfect picture or figure; and
he who takes away or adds also gives a picture or figure, but not a good
one.

CRATYLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: In like manner, he who by syllables and letters imitates the
nature of things, if he gives all that is appropriate will produce a
good image, or in other words a name; but if he subtracts or perhaps
adds a little, he will make an image but not a good one; whence I infer
that some names are well and others ill made.

CRATYLUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Then the artist of names may be sometimes good, or he may be
bad?

CRATYLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And this artist of names is called the legislator?

CRATYLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then like other artists the legislator may be good or he may
be bad; it must surely be so if our former admissions hold good?

CRATYLUS: Very true, Socrates; but the case of language, you see, is
different; for when by the help of grammar we assign the letters alpha
or beta, or any other letters to a certain name, then, if we add, or
subtract, or misplace a letter, the name which is written is not only
written wrongly, but not written at all; and in any of these cases
becomes other than a name.

SOCRATES: But I doubt whether your view is altogether correct, Cratylus.

CRATYLUS: How so?

SOCRATES: I believe that what you say may be true about numbers, which
must be just what they are, or not be at all; for example, the number
ten at once becomes other than ten if a unit be added or subtracted,
and so of any other number: but this does not apply to that which is
qualitative or to anything which is represented under an image. I should
say rather that the image, if expressing in every point the entire
reality, would no longer be an image. Let us suppose the existence of
two objects: one of them shall be Cratylus, and the other the image of
Cratylus; and we will suppose, further, that some God makes not only
a representation such as a painter would make of your outward form and
colour, but also creates an inward organization like yours, having the
same warmth and softness; and into this infuses motion, and soul, and
mind, such as you have, and in a word copies all your qualities, and
places them by you in another form; would you say that this was Cratylus
and the image of Cratylus, or that there were two Cratyluses?

CRATYLUS: I should say that there were two Cratyluses.

SOCRATES: Then you see, my friend, that we must find some other
principle of truth in im