But
are words really consistent; are there not as many terms of praise
which signify rest as which signify motion? There is episteme, which
is connected with stasis, as mneme is with meno. Bebaion, again, is the
expression of station and position; istoria is clearly descriptive of
the stopping istanai of the stream; piston indicates the cessation of
motion; and there are many words having a bad sense, which are connected
with ideas of motion, such as sumphora, amartia, etc.: amathia, again,
might be explained, as e ama theo iontos poreia, and akolasia as e
akolouthia tois pragmasin. Thus the bad names are framed on the same
principle as the good, and other examples might be given, which would
favour a theory of rest rather than of motion. 'Yes; but the greater
number of words express motion.' Are we to count them, Cratylus; and is
correctness of names to be determined by the voice of a majority?

Here is another point: we were saying that the legislator gives names;
and therefore we must suppose that he knows the things which he names:
but how can he have learnt things from names before there were any
names? 'I believe, Socrates, that some power more than human first gave
things their names, and that these were necessarily true names.' Then
how came the giver of names to contradict himself, and to make some
names expressive of rest, and others of motion? 'I do not suppose
that he did make them both.' Then which did he make--those which are
expressive of rest, or those which are expressive of motion?...But if
some names are true and others false, we can only decide between them,
not by counting words, but by appealing to things. And, if so, we must
allow that things may be known without names; for names, as we have
several times admitted, are the images of things; and the higher
knowledge is of things, and is not to be derived from names; and though
I do not doubt that the inventors of language gave names, under the idea
that all things are in a state of motion and flux, I believe that they
were mistaken; and that having fallen into a whirlpool themselves, they
are trying to drag us after them. For is there not a true beauty and
a true good, which is always beautiful and always good? Can the thing
beauty be vanishing away from us while the words are yet in our mouths?
And they could not be known by any one if they are always passing
away--for if they are always passing away, the observer has no
opportunity of observing t