Socrates: That is to say, the mode of assignment which attributes to each that which belongs to them and is like them?
Cratylus: That is my view.
Socrates: Now then, as I am desirous that we being friends should have a good understanding about the argument, let me state my view to you: the first mode of assignment, whether applied to figures or to names, I call right, and when applied to names only, true as well as right; and the other mode of giving and assigning the name which is unlike, I call wrong, and in the case of names, false as well as wrong.
Cratylus: That may be true, Socrates, in the case of pictures; they may be wrongly assigned; but not in the case of names—they must be always right.
Socrates: Why, what is the difference? May I not go to a man and say to him, “This is your picture,” showing him his own likeness, or perhaps the likeness of a woman; and when I say “show,” I mean bring before the sense of sight.
Cratylus: Certainly.
Socrates: And may I not go to him again, and say, “This is your name”?—for the name, like the picture, is an imitation. May I not say to him—“This is your name”? and may I not then bring to his sense of hearing the imitation of himself, when I say, “This is a man”; or of a female of the human species, when I say, “This is a woman,” as the case may be? Is not all that quite possible?
Cratylus: I would fain agree with you, Socrates; and therefore I say, Granted.
Socrates: That is very good of you, if I am right, which need hardly be disputed at present. But if I can assign names as well as pictures to objects, the right assignment of them we may call truth, and the wrong assignment of them falsehood. Now if there be such a wrong assignment of names, there may also be a wrong or inappropriate assignment of verbs; and if of names and verbs then of the sentences, which are made up of them. What do you say, Cratylus?
Cratylus: I agree; and think that what you say is very true.
Socrates: And further, primitive nouns may be compared to pictures, and in pictures you may either give all the appropriate colours and figures, or you may not give them all—some may be wanting; or there may be too many or too much of them—may there not?
Cratylus: Very true.
Socrates: And he who gives all gives a perfect picture or figure; and he who takes away or adds also gives a picture or figure, but not a good one.
Cratylus: Yes.
Socrates: In like manner, he who by syllables and letters imitates the nature of things, if he gives all that is appropriate will produce a good image, or in other words a name; but if he subtracts or perhaps adds a little, he will make an image but not a good one; whence I infer that some names are well and others ill made.
Cratylus: That is true.
Socrates: Then the artist of names may be sometimes good, or he may be bad?
Cratylus: Yes.
Socrates: And this artist of names is called the legislator?
Cratylus: Yes.
Socrates: Then like other artists the legislator may be good or he may be bad; it must surely be so if our former admissions hold good?
Cratylus: Very true, Socrates; but the case of language, you see, is different; for when by the help of grammar we assign the letters α or β, or any other letters to a certain name, then, if we add, or subtract, or misplace a letter, the name which is written is not only written wrongly, but not written at all; and in any of these cases becomes other than a name.
Socrates: But I doubt whether your view is altogether correct, Cratylus.
Cratylus: How so?
Socrates: I believe that what you say may be true about numbers, which must be just what they are, or not be at all; for example, the number ten at once becomes other than ten if a unit be added or subtracted, and so of any other number: but this does not apply to that which is qualitative or to anything which is represented under an image. I should say rather that the image, if expressing in every point the entire reality, would no longer be an image. Let us suppose the existence of two objects: one of them shall be Cratylus, and the other the image of Cratylus; and we will suppose, further, that some God makes not only a representation such as a painter would make of your outward form and colour, but also creates an inward organization like yours, having the same warmth and softness; and into this infuses motion, and soul, and mind, such as you have, and in a word copies all your qualities, and places them by you in another form; would you say that this was Cratylus and the image of Cratylus, or that there were two Cratyluses?