reek. Yet he has conceived very truly the
relation of Greek to foreign languages, which he is led to consider,
because he finds that many Greek words are incapable of explanation.
Allowing a good deal for accident, and also for the fancies of the
conditores linguae Graecae, there is an element of which he is unable to
give an account. These unintelligible words he supposes to be of foreign
origin, and to have been derived from a time when the Greeks were either
barbarians, or in close relations to the barbarians. Socrates is aware
that this principle is liable to great abuse; and, like the 'Deus ex
machina,' explains nothing. Hence he excuses himself for the employment
of such a device, and remarks that in foreign words there is still
a principle of correctness, which applies equally both to Greeks and
barbarians.

(3) But the greater number of primary words do not admit of derivation
from foreign languages; they must be resolved into the letters out of
which they are composed, and therefore the letters must have a meaning.
The framers of language were aware of this; they observed that alpha was
adapted to express size; eta length; omicron roundness; nu inwardness;
rho accent rush or roar; lambda liquidity; gamma lambda the detention of
the liquid or slippery element; delta and tau binding; phi, psi, sigma,
xi, wind and cold, and so on. Plato's analysis of the letters of the
alphabet shows a wonderful insight into the nature of language. He does
not expressively distinguish between mere imitation and the symbolical
use of sound to express thought, but he recognises in the examples which
he gives both modes of imitation. Gesture is the mode which a deaf and
dumb person would take of indicating his meaning. And language is the
gesture of the tongue; in the use of the letter rho accent, to express
a rushing or roaring, or of omicron to express roundness, there is a
direct imitation; while in the use of the letter alpha to express size,
or of eta to express length, the imitation is symbolical. The use of
analogous or similar sounds, in order to express similar analogous
ideas, seems to have escaped him.

In passing from the gesture of the body to the movement of the tongue,
Plato makes a great step in the physiology of language. He was probably
the first who said that 'language is imitative sound,' which is the
greatest and deepest truth of philology; although he is not aware of the
laws of euphony and association by which