names differ? and are they relative to individuals, as Protagoras tells
us? For he says that man is the measure of all things, and that things
are to me as they appear to me, and that they are to you as they appear
to you. Do you agree with him, or would you say that things have a
permanent essence of their own?
HERMOGENES: There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in
my perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him
at all.
SOCRATES: What! have you ever been driven to admit that there was no
such thing as a bad man?
HERMOGENES: No, indeed; but I have often had reason to think that there
are very bad men, and a good many of them.
SOCRATES: Well, and have you ever found any very good ones?
HERMOGENES: Not many.
SOCRATES: Still you have found them?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you hold that the very good were the very wise, and
the very evil very foolish? Would that be your view?
HERMOGENES: It would.
SOCRATES: But if Protagoras is right, and the truth is that things are
as they appear to any one, how can some of us be wise and some of us
foolish?
HERMOGENES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And if, on the other hand, wisdom and folly are really
distinguishable, you will allow, I think, that the assertion of
Protagoras can hardly be correct. For if what appears to each man is
true to him, one man cannot in reality be wiser than another.
HERMOGENES: He cannot.
SOCRATES: Nor will you be disposed to say with Euthydemus, that all
things equally belong to all men at the same moment and always; for
neither on his view can there be some good and others bad, if virtue
and vice are always equally to be attributed to all.
HERMOGENES: There cannot.
SOCRATES: But if neither is right, and things are not relative to
individuals, and all things do not equally belong to all at the same
moment and always, they must be supposed to have their own proper and
permanent essence: they are not in relation to us, or influenced by us,
fluctuating according to our fancy, but they are independent, and
maintain to their own essence the relation prescribed by nature.
HERMOGENES: I think, Socrates, that you have said the truth.
SOCRATES: Does what I am saying apply only to the things themselves, or
equally to the actions which proceed from them? Are not actions also a
class of being?
HERMOGENES: Yes, the actions are real as well as the things.
SOCRATES: Then the actions also are done according to their proper
nature, and not according to our opinion of them? In cutting, for
example, we do not cut as we please, and with any chance instrument;
but we cut with the proper instrument only, and according to the
natural process of cutting; and the natural process is right and will
succeed, but any other will fail and be of no use at all.
HERMOGENES: I should say that the natural way is the right way.
SOCRATES: Again, in burning, not every way is the right way; but the
right way is the natural way, and the right instrument the natural
instrument.
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And this holds good of all actions?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And speech is a kind of action?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And will a man speak correctly who speaks as he pleases? Will
not the successful speaker rather be he who speaks in the natural way
of speaking, and as things ought to be spoken, and with the natural
instrument? Any other mode of speaking will result in error and
failure.
HERMOGENES: I quite agree with you.
SOCRATES: And is not naming a part of speaking? for in giving names men
speak.
HERMOGENES: That is true.
SOCRATES: And if speaking is a sort of action and has a relation to
acts, is not naming also a sort of action?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And we saw that actions were not relative to ourselves, but
had a special nature of their own?
HERMOGENES: Precisely.
SOCRATES: Then the argument would lead us to infer that names ought to
be given according to a natural process, and with a proper instrument,
and not at our pleasure: in this and no other way shall we name with
success.
HERMOGENES: I agree.
SOCRATES: But again, that which has to be cut has to be cut with
something?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that which has to be woven or pierced has to be woven or
pierced with something?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that which has to be named has to be named with
something?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: What is that with which we pierce?
HERMOGENES: An awl.
SOCRATES: And with which we weave?
HERMOGENES: A shuttle.
SOCRATES: And with which we name?
HERMOGENES: A name.
SOCRATES: Very good: then a name is an instrument?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Suppose that I ask, “What sort of instrument is a shuttle?”
And you answer, “A weaving instrument.”
HERMOGENES: Well.
SOCRATES: And I ask again, “What do we do when we weave?”—The answer
is, that we separate or disengage the warp from the woof.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And may not a similar description be given of an awl, and of
instruments in general?
HERMOGENES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And now suppose that I ask a similar question about names:
will you answer me? Regarding the name as an instrument, what do we do
when we name?
HERMOGENES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: Do we not give information to one another, and distinguish
things according to their natures?
HERMOGENES: Certainly we do.
SOCRATES: Then a name is an instrument of teaching and of
distinguishing natures, as the shuttle is of distinguishing the threads
of the web.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the shuttle is the instrument of the weaver?
HERMOGENES: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: Then the weaver will use the shuttle well—and well means like
a weaver? and the teacher will use the name well—and well means like a
teacher?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when the weaver uses the shuttle, whose work will he be
using well?
HERMOGENES: That of the carpenter.
SOCRATES: And is every man a carpenter, or the skilled only?
HERMOGENES: Only the skilled.
SOCRATES: And when the piercer uses the awl, whose work will he be
using well?
HERMOGENES: That of the smith.
SOCRATES: And is every man a smith, or only the skilled?
HERMOGENES: The skilled only.
SOCRATES: And when the teacher uses the name, whose work will he be
using?
HERMOGENES: There again I am puzzled.
SOCRATES: Cannot you at least say who gives us the names which we use?
HERMOGENES: Indeed I cannot.
SOCRATES: Does not the law seem to you to give us them?
HERMOGENES: Yes, I suppose so.
SOCRATES: Then the teacher, when he gives us a name, uses the work of
the legislator?
HERMOGENES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And is every man a legislator, or the skilled only?
HERMOGENES: The skilled only.
SOCRATES: Then, Hermogenes, not every man is able to give a name, but
only a maker of names; and this is the legislator, who of all skilled
artisans in the world is the rarest.
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And how does the legislator make names? and to what does he
look? Consider this in the light of the previous instances: to what
does the carpenter look in making the shuttle? Does he not look to that
which is naturally fitted to act as a shuttle?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And suppose the shuttle to be broken in making, will he make
another, looking to the broken one? or will he look to the form
according to which he made the other?
HERMOGENES: To the latter, I should imagine.
SOCRATES: Might not that be justly called the true or ideal shuttle?
HERMOGENES: I think so.
SOCRATES: And whatever shuttles are wanted, for the manufacture of
garments, thin or thick, of flaxen, woollen, or other material, ought
all of them to have the true form of the shuttle; and whatever is the
shuttle best adapted to each kind of work, that ought to be the form
which the maker produces in each case.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the same holds of other instruments: when a man has
discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he
must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the
material, whatever it may be, which he employs; for example, he ought
to know how to put into iron the forms of awls adapted by nature to
their several uses?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And how to put into wood forms of shuttles adapted by nature
to their uses?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: For the several forms of shuttles naturally answer to the
several kinds of webs; and this is true of instruments in general.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then, as to names: ought not our legislator also to know how
to put the true natural name of each thing into sounds and syllables,
and to make and give all names with a view to the ideal name, if he is
to be a namer in any true sense? And we must remember that different
legislators will not use the same syllables. For neither does every
smith, although he may be making the same instrument for the same
purpose, make them all of the same iron. The form must be the same, but
the material may vary, and still the instrument may be equally good of
whatever iron made, whether in Hellas or in a foreign country;—there is
no difference.
HERMOGENES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the legislator, whether he be Hellene or barbarian, is
not therefore to be deemed by you a worse legislator, provided he gives
the true and proper form of the name in whatever syllables; this or
that country makes no matter.
HERMOGENES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: But who then is to determine whether the proper form is given
to the shuttle, whatever sort of wood may be used? the carpenter who
makes, or the weaver who is to use them?
HERMOGENES: I should say, he who is to use them, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And who uses the work of the lyre-maker? Will not he be the
man who knows how to direct what is being done, and who will know also
whether the work is being well done or not?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And who is he?
HERMOGENES: The player of the lyre.
SOCRATES: And who will direct the shipwright?
HERMOGENES: The pilot.
SOCRATES: And who will be best able to direct the legislator in his
work, and will know whether the work is well done, in this or any other
country? Will not the user be the man?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And this is he who knows how to ask questions?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And how to answer them?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And him who knows how to ask and answer you would call a
dialectician?
HERMOGENES: Yes; that would be his name.
SOCRATES: Then the work of the carpenter is to make a rudder, and the
pilot has to direct him, if the rudder is to be well made.
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: And the work of the legislator is to give names, and the
dialectician must be his director if the names are to be rightly given?
HERMOGENES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then, Hermogenes, I should say that this giving of names can
be no such light matter as you fancy, or the work of light or chance
persons; and Cratylus is right in saying that things have names by
nature, and that not every man is an artificer of names, but he only
who looks to the name which each thing by nature has, and is able to
express the true forms of things in letters and syllables.
HERMOGENES: I cannot answer you, Socrates; but I find a difficulty in
changing my opinion all in a moment, and I think that I should be more
readily persuaded, if you would show me what this is which you term the
natural fitness of names.
SOCRATES: My good Hermogenes, I have none to show. Was I not telling
you just now (but you have forgotten), that I knew nothing, and
proposing to share the enquiry with you? But now that you and I have
talked over the matter, a step has been gained; for we have discovered
that names have by nature a truth, and that not every man knows how to
give a thing a name.
HERMOGENES: Very good.
SOCRATES: And what is the nature of this truth or correctness of names?
That, if you care to know, is the next question.
HERMOGENES: Certainly, I care to know.
SOCRATES: Then reflect.
HERMOGENES: How shall I reflect?
SOCRATES: The true way is to have the assistance of those who know, and
you must pay them well both in money and in thanks; these are the
Sophists, of whom your brother, Callias, has—rather dearly—bought the
reputation of wisdom. But you have not yet come into your inheritance,
and therefore you had better go to him, and beg and entreat him to tell
you what he has learnt from Protagoras about the fitness of names.
HERMOGENES: But how inconsistent should I be, if, whilst repudiating
Protagoras and his truth (“Truth” was the title of the book of
Protagoras; compare Theaet.), I were to attach any value to what he and
his book affirm!
SOCRATES: Then if you despise him, you must learn of Homer and the
poets.
HERMOGENES: And where does Homer say anything about names, and what
does he say?
SOCRATES: He often speaks of them; notably and nobly in the places
where he distinguishes the different names which Gods and men give to
the same things. Does he not in these passages make a remarkable
statement about the correctness of names? For the Gods must clearly be
supposed to call things by their right and natural names; do you not
think so?
HERMOGENES: Why, of course they call them rightly, if they call them at
all. But to what are you referring?
SOCRATES: Do you not know what he says about the river in Troy who had
a single combat with Hephaestus?
“Whom,” as he says, “the Gods call Xanthus, and men call Scamander.”
HERMOGENES: I remember.
SOCRATES: Well, and about this river—to know that he ought to be called
Xanthus and not Scamander—is not that a solemn lesson? Or about the
bird which, as he says,
“The Gods call Chalcis, and men Cymindis:”
to be taught how much more correct the name Chalcis is than the name
Cymindis—do you deem that a light matter? Or about Batieia and Myrina?
(Compare Il. “The hill which men call Batieia and the immortals the
tomb of the sportive Myrina.”) And there are many other observations of
the same kind in Homer and other poets. Now, I think that this is
beyond the understanding of you and me; but the names of Scamandrius
and Astyanax, which he affirms to have been the names of Hector’s son,
are more within the range of human faculties, as I am disposed to
think; and what the poet means by correctness may be more readily
apprehended in that instance: you will remember I dare say the lines to
which I refer? (Il.)
HERMOGENES: I do.
SOCRATES: Let me ask you, then, which did Homer think the more correct
of the names given to Hector’s son—Astyanax or Scamandrius?
HERMOGENES: I do not know.
SOCRATES: How would you answer, if you were asked whether the wise or
the unwise are more likely to give correct names?
HERMOGENES: I should say the wise, of course.
SOCRATES: And are the men or the women of a city, taken as a class, the
wiser?
HERMOGENES: I should say, the men.
SOCRATES: And Homer, as you know, says that the Trojan men called him
Astyanax (king of the city); but if the men called him Astyanax, the
other name of Scamandrius could only have been given to him by the
women.
HERMOGENES: That may be inferred.
SOCRATES: And must not Homer have imagined the Trojans to be wiser than
their wives?
HERMOGENES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: Then he must have thought Astyanax to be a more correct name
for the boy than Scamandrius?
HERMOGENES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And what is the reason of this? Let us consider:—does he not
himself suggest a very good reason, when he says,
“For he alone defended their city and long walls”?
This appears to be a good reason for calling the son of the saviour
king of the city which his father was saving, as Homer observes.
HERMOGENES: I see.
SOCRATES: Why, Hermogenes, I do not as yet see myself; and do you?
HERMOGENES: No, indeed; not I.
SOCRATES: But tell me, friend, did not Homer himself also give Hector
his name?
HERMOGENES: What of that?
SOCRATES: The name appears to me to be very nearly the same as the name
of Astyanax—both are Hellenic; and a king (anax) and a holder (ektor)
have nearly the same meaning, and are both descriptive of a king; for a
man is clearly the holder of that of which he is king; he rules, and
owns, and holds it. But, perhaps, you may think that I am talking
nonsense; and indeed I believe that I myself did not know what I meant
when I imagined that I had found some indication of the opinion of
Homer about the correctness of names.
HERMOGENES: I assure you that I think otherwise, and I believe you to
be on the right track.
SOCRATES: There is reason, I think, in calling the lion’s whelp a lion,
and the foal of a horse a horse; I am speaking only of the ordinary
course of nature, when an animal produces after his kind, and not of
extraordinary births;—if contrary to nature a horse have a calf, then I
should not call that a foal but a calf; nor do I call any inhuman birth
a man, but only a natural birth. And the same may be said of trees and
other things. Do you agree with me?
HERMOGENES: Yes, I agree.
SOCRATES: Very good. But you had better watch me and see that I do not
play tricks with you. For on the same principle the son of a king is to
be called a king. And whether the syllables of the name are the same or
not the same, makes no difference, provided the meaning is retained;
nor does the addition or subtraction of a letter make any difference so
long as the essence of the thing remains in possession of the name and
appears in it.
HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: A very simple matter. I may illustrate my meaning by the
names of letters, which you know are not the same as the letters
themselves with the exception of the four epsilon, upsilon, omicron,
omega; the names of the rest, whether vowels or consonants, are made up
of other letters which we add to them; but so long as we introduce the
meaning, and there can be no mistake, the name of the letter is quite
correct. Take, for example, the letter beta—the addition of eta, tau,
alpha, gives no offence, and does not prevent the whole name from
having the value which the legislator intended—so well did he know how
to give the letters names.
HERMOGENES: I believe you are right.
SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of a king? a king will often be
the son of a king, the good son or the noble son of a good or noble
sire; and similarly the offspring of every kind, in the regular course
of nature, is like the parent, and therefore has the same name. Yet the
syllables may be disguised until they appear different to the ignorant
person, and he may not recognize them, although they are the same, just
as any one of us would not recognize the same drugs under different
disguises of colour and smell, although to the physician, who regards
the power of them, they are the same, and he is not put out by the
addition; and in like manner the etymologist is not put out by the
addition or transposition or subtraction of a letter or two, or indeed
by the change of all the letters, for this need not interfere with the
meaning. As was just now said, the names of Hector and Astyanax have
only one letter alike, which is tau, and yet they have the same
meaning. And how little in common with the letters of their names has
Archepolis (ruler of the city)—and yet the meaning is the same. And
there are many other names which just mean “king.” Again, there are
several names for a general, as, for example, Agis (leader) and
Polemarchus (chief in war) and Eupolemus (good warrior); and others
which denote a physician, as Iatrocles (famous healer) and Acesimbrotus
(curer of mortals); and there are many others which might be cited,
differing in their syllables and letters, but having the same meaning.
Would you not say so?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: The same names, then, ought to be assigned to those who
follow in the course of nature?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what of those who follow out of the course of nature, and
are prodigies? for example, when a good and religious man has an
irreligious son, he ought to bear the name not of his father, but of
the class to which he belongs, just as in the case which was before
supposed of a horse foaling a calf.
HERMOGENES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Then the irreligious son of a religious father should be
called irreligious?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: He should not be called Theophilus (beloved of God) or
Mnesitheus (mindful of God), or any of these names: if names are
correctly given, his should have an opposite meaning.
HERMOGENES: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Again, Hermogenes, there is Orestes (the man of the
mountains) who appears to be rightly called; whether chance gave the
name, or perhaps some poet who meant to express the brutality and
fierceness and mountain wildness of his hero’s nature.
HERMOGENES: That is very likely, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And his father’s name is also according to nature.
HERMOGENES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Yes, for as his name, so also is his nature; Agamemnon
(admirable for remaining) is one who is patient and persevering in the
accomplishment of his resolves, and by his virtue crowns them; and his
continuance at Troy with all the vast army is a proof of that admirable
endurance in him which is signified by the name Agamemnon. I also think
that Atreus is rightly called; for his murder of Chrysippus and his
exceeding cruelty to Thyestes are damaging and destructive to his
reputation—the name is a little altered and disguised so as not to be
intelligible to every one, but to the etymologist there is no
difficulty in seeing the meaning, for whether you think of him as
ateires the stubborn, or as atrestos the fearless, or as ateros the
destructive one, the name is perfectly correct in every point of view.
And I think that Pelops is also named appropriately; for, as the name
implies, he is rightly called Pelops who sees what is near only (o ta
pelas oron).
HERMOGENES: How so?
SOCRATES: Because, according to the tradition, he had no forethought or
foresight of all the evil which the murder of Myrtilus would entail
upon his whole race in remote ages; he saw only what was at hand and
immediate,—or in other words, pelas (near), in his eagerness to win
Hippodamia by all means for his bride. Every one would agree that the
name of Tantalus is rightly given and in accordance with nature, if the
traditions about him are true.
HERMOGENES: And what are the traditions?
SOCRATES: Many terrible misfortunes are said to have happened to him in
his life—last of all, came the utter ruin of his country; and after his
death he had the stone suspended (talanteia) over his head in the world
below—all this agrees wonderfully well with his name. You might imagine
that some person who wanted to call him Talantatos (the most weighted
down by misfortune), disguised the name by altering it into Tantalus;
and into this form, by some accident of tradition, it has actually been
transmuted. The name of Zeus, who is his alleged father, has also an
excellent meaning, although hard to be understood, because really like
a sentence, which is divided into two parts, for some call him Zena,
and use the one half, and others who use the other half call him Dia;
the two together signify the nature of the God, and the business of a
name, as we were saying, is to express the nature. For there is none
who is more the author of life to us and to all, than the lord and king
of all. Wherefore we are right in calling him Zena and Dia, which are
one name, although divided, meaning the God through whom all creatures
always have life (di on zen aei pasi tois zosin uparchei). There is an
irreverence, at first sight, in calling him son of Cronos (who is a
proverb for stupidity), and we might rather expect Zeus to be the child
of a mighty intellect. Which is the fact; for this is the meaning of
his father’s name: Kronos quasi Koros (Choreo, to sweep), not in the
sense of a youth, but signifying to chatharon chai acheraton tou nou,
the pure and garnished mind (sc. apo tou chorein). He, as we are
informed by tradition, was begotten of Uranus, rightly so called (apo
tou oran ta ano) from looking upwards; which, as philosophers tell us,
is the way to have a pure mind, and the name Uranus is therefore
correct. If I could remember the genealogy of Hesiod, I would have gone
on and tried more conclusions of the same sort on the remoter ancestors
of the Gods,—then I might have seen whether this wisdom, which has come
to me all in an instant, I know not whence, will or will not hold good
to the end.
HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly
inspired, and to be uttering oracles.