mes at all.

SOCRATES: And which, then, did he make, my good friend; those which are
expressive of rest, or those which are expressive of motion? This is a
point which, as I said before, cannot be determined by counting them.

CRATYLUS: No; not in that way, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But if this is a battle of names, some of them asserting that
they are like the truth, others contending that THEY are, how or by what
criterion are we to decide between them? For there are no other names to
which appeal can be made, but obviously recourse must be had to another
standard which, without employing names, will make clear which of the
two are right; and this must be a standard which shows the truth of
things.

CRATYLUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: But if that is true, Cratylus, then I suppose that things may
be known without names?

CRATYLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But how would you expect to know them? What other way can
there be of knowing them, except the true and natural way, through their
affinities, when they are akin to each other, and through themselves?
For that which is other and different from them must signify something
other and different from them.

CRATYLUS: What you are saying is, I think, true.

SOCRATES: Well, but reflect; have we not several times acknowledged that
names rightly given are the likenesses and images of the things which
they name?

CRATYLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Let us suppose that to any extent you please you can learn
things through the medium of names, and suppose also that you can learn
them from the things themselves--which is likely to be the nobler and
clearer way; to learn of the image, whether the image and the truth of
which the image is the expression have been rightly conceived, or to
learn of the truth whether the truth and the image of it have been duly
executed?

CRATYLUS: I should say that we must learn of the truth.

SOCRATES: How real existence is to be studied or discovered is, I
suspect, beyond you and me. But we may admit so much, that the knowledge
of things is not to be derived from names. No; they must be studied and
investigated in themselves.

CRATYLUS: Clearly, Socrates.

SOCRATES: There is another point. I should not like us to be imposed
upon by the appearance of such a multitude of names, all tending in the
same direction. I myself do not deny that the givers of names did really
give them under the idea that all things were in motion and flux; which
was their sincere