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Socrates. Here is another point. Has not each thing an essential nature, just as it has a color and the other qualities we just mentioned? Indeed, in the first place, have not color and sound and all other things which may properly be said to exist, each and all an essential nature?
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Hermogenes. I think so.
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Socrates. Well, then, if anyone could imitate this essential nature of each thing by means of letters and syllables, he would show what each thing really is, would he not?
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Hermogenes. Certainly.
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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?
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Hermogenes. I think, Socrates, he is what we have been looking for all along, the name-maker.
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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 of the things named and imitates their essential nature, or not?
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Hermogenes. Certainly.
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Socrates. Well now, let us see whether those are the only primary names, or there are others.
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Hermogenes. I think there are others.
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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, 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?
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Hermogenes. Yes.