diculous would this be! Cratylus
admits the truth of Socrates' remark. But then Socrates rejoins, he
should have the courage to acknowledge that letters may be wrongly
inserted in a noun, or a noun in a sentence; and yet the noun or the
sentence may retain a meaning. Better to admit this, that we may not be
punished like the traveller in Egina who goes about at night, and that
Truth herself may not say to us, 'Too late.' And, errors excepted, we
may still affirm that a name to be correct must have proper letters,
which bear a resemblance to the thing signified. I must remind you of
what Hermogenes and I were saying about the letter rho accent, which
was held to be expressive of motion and hardness, as lambda is of
smoothness;--and this you will admit to be their natural meaning. But
then, why do the Eritreans call that skleroter which we call sklerotes?
We can understand one another, although the letter rho accent is not
equivalent to the letter s: why is this? You reply, because the two
letters are sufficiently alike for the purpose of expressing motion.
Well, then, there is the letter lambda; what business has this in a word
meaning hardness? 'Why, Socrates, I retort upon you, that we put in and
pull out letters at pleasure.' And the explanation of this is custom
or agreement: we have made a convention that the rho shall mean s and a
convention may indicate by the unlike as well as by the like. How could
there be names for all the numbers unless you allow that convention
is used? Imitation is a poor thing, and has to be supplemented by
convention, which is another poor thing; although I agree with you in
thinking that the most perfect form of language is found only where
there is a perfect correspondence of sound and meaning. But let me ask
you what is the use and force of names? 'The use of names, Socrates, is
to inform, and he who knows names knows things.' Do you mean that the
discovery of names is the same as the discovery of things? 'Yes.' But
do you not see that there is a degree of deception about names? He who
first gave names, gave them according to his conception, and that
may have been erroneous. 'But then, why, Socrates, is language so
consistent? all words have the same laws.' Mere consistency is no test
of truth. In geometrical problems, for example, there may be a flaw
at the beginning, and yet the conclusion may follow consistently. And,
therefore, a wise man will take especial care of first principles.