e a teacher. The shuttle will be made by the
carpenter; the awl by the smith or skilled person. But who makes a name?
Does not the law give names, and does not the teacher receive them from
the legislator? He is the skilled person who makes them, and of all
skilled workmen he is the rarest. But how does the carpenter make or
repair the shuttle, and to what will he look? Will he not look at the
ideal which he has in his mind? And as the different kinds of work
differ, so ought the instruments which make them to differ. The several
kinds of shuttles ought to answer in material and form to the several
kinds of webs. And the legislator ought to know the different materials
and forms of which names are made in Hellas and other countries. But
who is to be the judge of the proper form? The judge of shuttles is the
weaver who uses them; the judge of lyres is the player of the lyre;
the judge of ships is the pilot. And will not the judge who is able to
direct the legislator in his work of naming, be he who knows how to
use the names--he who can ask and answer questions--in short, the
dialectician? The pilot directs the carpenter how to make the rudder,
and the dialectician directs the legislator how he is to impose names;
for to express the ideal forms of things in syllables and letters is not
the easy task, Hermogenes, which you imagine.

'I should be more readily persuaded, if you would show me this natural
correctness of names.'

Indeed I cannot; but I see that you have advanced; for you now admit
that there is a correctness of names, and that not every one can give
a name. But what is the nature of this correctness or truth, you must
learn from the Sophists, of whom your brother Callias has bought his
reputation for wisdom rather dearly; and since they require to be paid,
you, having no money, had better learn from him at second-hand. 'Well,
but I have just given up Protagoras, and I should be inconsistent in
going to learn of him.' Then if you reject him you may learn of the
poets, and in particular of Homer, who distinguishes the names given by
Gods and men to the same things, as in the verse about the river God
who fought with Hephaestus, 'whom the Gods call Xanthus, and men call
Scamander;' or in the lines in which he mentions the bird which the
Gods call 'Chalcis,' and men 'Cymindis;' or the hill which men call
'Batieia,' and the Gods 'Myrinna's Tomb.' Here is an important lesson;
for the Gods must of course be right i