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An Excerpt from Plato's The Cratylus
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Socrates: And what will you call him who can do this,
as you called the others musician and painter? What will you call this man?
Hermogenes: I think, Socrates, he is what we have been
looking for all along, the name-maker.
Socrates: If that is the case, is it our next duty
to consider whether in these names about which you were asking--flow, motion, and
restraint--the namemaker grasps with his letters and syllables the reality [424b]
of the things named and imitates their essential nature, or not?
Hermogenes: Certainly.
Socrates: Well now, let us see whether those are the
only primary names, or there are others.
Hermogenes: I think there are others.
Socrates: Yes, most likely there are. Now what is the
method of division with which the imitator begins his imitation? Since the imitation
of the essential nature is made with letters and syllables, would not the most
correct way be for us to separate the letters first, [424c] just as those who undertake
the practice of rhythms separate first the qualities of the letters, then those of the
syllables, and then, but not till then, come to the study of rhythms?
Hermogenes: Yes.
Socrates: Must not we, too, separate first the vowels,
then in their several classes the consonants or mutes, as they are called by those
who specialize in phonetics, ... ?
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THE_BOOK_THE_CRATYLUS_02
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