434
Socrates. In saying custom do you think you are saying anything different from convention? Do you not mean by convention that when I speak I have a definite meaning and you recognize that I have that meaning? Is not that what you mean?
435
Cratylus. Yes.
435
Socrates. Then if you recognize my meaning when I speak, that is an indication given to you by me.
435
Cratylus. Yes.
435
Socrates. The indication comes from something which is unlike my meaning when I speak, if in your example σκληρότης the lambda is unlike hardness; and if this is true, did you not make a convention with yourself, since both like and unlike letters, by the influence of custom and convention, produce indication? And even if custom is entirely distinct from convention, we should henceforth be obliged to say that custom, not likeness, is the principle of indication, since custom, it appears, indicates both by the like and by the unlike. And since we grant this, Cratylus—for I take it that your silence gives consent—both convention and custom must contribute something towards the indication of our meaning when we speak. For, my friend, if you will just turn your attention to numbers, where do you think you can possibly get names to apply to each individual number on the principle of likeness, unless you allow agreement and convention on your part to control the correctness of names? I myself prefer the theory that names are, so far as is possible, like the things named; but really this attractive force of likeness is, as Hermogenes says, a poor thing, and we are compelled to employ in addition this commonplace expedient, convention, to establish the correctness of names. Probably language would be, within the bounds of possibility, most excellent when all its terms, or as many as possible, were based on likeness, that is to say, were appropriate, and most deficient under opposite conditions. But now answer the next question. What is the function of names, and what good do they accomplish?
