Cratylus | Page 4

fanciful etymologies, extending
over more than half the dialogue, which he seems so greatly to relish?
Or is he serious in part only; and can we separate his jest from his
earnest?--Sunt bona, sunt quaedum mediocria, sunt mala plura. Most of
them are ridiculously bad, and yet among them are found, as if by
accident, principles of philology which are unsurpassed in any ancient
writer, and even in advance of any philologer of the last century. May
we suppose that Plato, like Lucian, has been amusing his fancy by
writing a comedy in the form of a prose dialogue? And what is the final
result of the enquiry? Is Plato an upholder of the conventional theory of
language, which he acknowledges to be imperfect? or does he mean to
imply that a perfect language can only be based on his own theory of
ideas? Or if this latter explanation is refuted by his silence, then in what
relation does his account of language stand to the rest of his philosophy?
Or may we be so bold as to deny the connexion between them? (For the
allusion to the ideas at the end of the dialogue is merely intended to
show that we must not put words in the place of things or realities,
which is a thesis strongly insisted on by Plato in many other

passages)...These are some of the first thoughts which arise in the mind
of the reader of the Cratylus. And the consideration of them may form a
convenient introduction to the general subject of the dialogue.
We must not expect all the parts of a dialogue of Plato to tend equally
to some clearly-defined end. His idea of literary art is not the absolute
proportion of the whole, such as we appear to find in a Greek temple or
statue; nor should his works be tried by any such standard. They have
often the beauty of poetry, but they have also the freedom of
conversation. 'Words are more plastic than wax' (Rep.), and may be
moulded into any form. He wanders on from one topic to another,
careless of the unity of his work, not fearing any 'judge, or spectator,
who may recall him to the point' (Theat.), 'whither the argument blows
we follow' (Rep.). To have determined beforehand, as in a modern
didactic treatise, the nature and limits of the subject, would have been
fatal to the spirit of enquiry or discovery, which is the soul of the
dialogue...These remarks are applicable to nearly all the works of Plato,
but to the Cratylus and Phaedrus more than any others. See Phaedrus,
Introduction.
There is another aspect under which some of the dialogues of Plato
may be more truly viewed:--they are dramatic sketches of an argument.
We have found that in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Protagoras, Meno,
we arrived at no conclusion--the different sides of the argument were
personified in the different speakers; but the victory was not distinctly
attributed to any of them, nor the truth wholly the property of any. And
in the Cratylus we have no reason to assume that Socrates is either
wholly right or wholly wrong, or that Plato, though he evidently
inclines to him, had any other aim than that of personifying, in the
characters of Hermogenes, Socrates, and Cratylus, the three theories of
language which are respectively maintained by them.
The two subordinate persons of the dialogue, Hermogenes and Cratylus,
are at the opposite poles of the argument. But after a while the disciple
of the Sophist and the follower of Heracleitus are found to be not so far
removed from one another as at first sight appeared; and both show an
inclination to accept the third view which Socrates interposes between

them. First, Hermogenes, the poor brother of the rich Callias, expounds
the doctrine that names are conventional; like the names of slaves, they
may be given and altered at pleasure. This is one of those principles
which, whether applied to society or language, explains everything and
nothing. For in all things there is an element of convention; but the
admission of this does not help us to understand the rational ground or
basis in human nature on which the convention proceeds. Socrates first
of all intimates to Hermogenes that his view of language is only a part
of a sophistical whole, and ultimately tends to abolish the distinction
between truth and falsehood. Hermogenes is very ready to throw aside
the sophistical tenet, and listens with a sort of half admiration, half
belief, to the speculations of Socrates.
Cratylus is of opinion that a name is either a true name or not a name at
all. He is unable to conceive of degrees of imitation; a word is either
the perfect expression of a thing, or a mere inarticulate sound