about it; but I was only able to attend the single-drachma course, and know as little of this difficult question as you. Still, I should like a free discussion on the subject."
We cannot (he goes on) accept Hermogenes' principle, that each man has a private right of nomenclature: for if anybody might name anything, and give it as many names as he liked, all meaning and distinction of terms would soon perish—there being as much truth and falsehood implied in words as in sentences. No,—speaking and naming, like any other art, should be done in the right way, with the right instrument, and by the right man in the right place. "This giving of names," he continues, "is no such light matter as you fancy, or the work of 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 thing which each name by nature has, and is, will be able to express the ideal forms of things in letters and syllables." It is the law that gives names through the legislator, who is advised in his work by the Dialectician, who alone knows the right use of names, and who can ask and answer questions properly.
The Sophists profess to teach you the correctness of names; but if you think lightly of them, turn to the poets. In Homer you will find that the same thing is called differently by gods and men—for instance, the river which the gods call Xanthus, men call Scamander; and there is a solemn and mysterious truth in this, for of course the gods must be right.
