are in motion or progress, but that
they are at rest; which is the opposite of motion.

CRATYLUS: Yes, Socrates, but observe; the greater number express motion.

SOCRATES: What of that, Cratylus? Are we to count them like votes? and
is correctness of names the voice of the majority? Are we to say of
whichever sort there are most, those are the true ones?

CRATYLUS: No; that is not reasonable.

SOCRATES: Certainly not. But let us have done with this question and
proceed to another, about which I should like to know whether you think
with me. Were we not lately acknowledging that the first givers of names
in states, both Hellenic and barbarous, were the legislators, and that
the art which gave names was the art of the legislator?

CRATYLUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, did the first legislators, who were the givers
of the first names, know or not know the things which they named?

CRATYLUS: They must have known, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Why, yes, friend Cratylus, they could hardly have been
ignorant.

CRATYLUS: I should say not.

SOCRATES: Let us return to the point from which we digressed. You were
saying, if you remember, that he who gave names must have known the
things which he named; are you still of that opinion?

CRATYLUS: I am.

SOCRATES: And would you say that the giver of the first names had also a
knowledge of the things which he named?

CRATYLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: But how could he have learned or discovered things from names
if the primitive names were not yet given? For, if we are correct in
our view, the only way of learning and discovering things, is either to
discover names for ourselves or to learn them from others.

CRATYLUS: I think that there is a good deal in what you say, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But if things are only to be known through names, how can
we suppose that the givers of names had knowledge, or were legislators
before there were names at all, and therefore before they could have
known them?

CRATYLUS: I believe, Socrates, the true account of the matter to be,
that a power more than human gave things their first names, and that the
names which are thus given are necessarily their true names.

SOCRATES: Then how came the giver of the names, if he was an inspired
being or God, to contradict himself? For were we not saying just now
that he made some names expressive of rest and others of motion? Were we
mistaken?

CRATYLUS: But I suppose one of the two not to be na