poils the beauty
and formation of the word: you would admit that?

CRATYLUS: There would be no use, Socrates, in my quarrelling with you,
since I cannot be satisfied that a name which is incorrectly given is a
name at all.

SOCRATES: Do you admit a name to be the representation of a thing?

CRATYLUS: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: But do you not allow that some nouns are primitive, and some
derived?

CRATYLUS: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: Then if you admit that primitive or first nouns are
representations of things, is there any better way of framing
representations than by assimilating them to the objects as much as you
can; or do you prefer the notion of Hermogenes and of many others, who
say that names are conventional, and have a meaning to those who
have agreed about them, and who have previous knowledge of the things
intended by them, and that convention is the only principle; and whether
you abide by our present convention, or make a new and opposite one,
according to which you call small great and great small--that, they
would say, makes no difference, if you are only agreed. Which of these
two notions do you prefer?

CRATYLUS: Representation by likeness, Socrates, is infinitely better
than representation by any chance sign.

SOCRATES: Very good: but if the name is to be like the thing, the
letters out of which the first names are composed must also be like
things. Returning to the image of the picture, I would ask, How could
any one ever compose a picture which would be like anything at all, if
there were not pigments in nature which resembled the things imitated,
and out of which the picture is composed?

CRATYLUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: No more could names ever resemble any actually existing thing,
unless the original elements of which they are compounded bore some
degree of resemblance to the objects of which the names are the
imitation: And the original elements are letters?

CRATYLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Let me now invite you to consider what Hermogenes and I
were saying about sounds. Do you agree with me that the letter rho is
expressive of rapidity, motion, and hardness? Were we right or wrong in
saying so?

CRATYLUS: I should say that you were right.

SOCRATES: And that lamda was expressive of smoothness, and softness, and
the like?

CRATYLUS: There again you were right.

SOCRATES: And yet, as you are aware, that which is called by us
sklerotes, is by the Eretrians called skleroter.

CRATYLUS: Very