You mean to say, for instance, rejoins Socrates, that if I agree to
call a man a horse, then a man will be rightly called a horse by me,
and a man by the rest of the world? But, surely, there is in words a
true and a false, as there are true and false propositions. If a whole
proposition be true or false, then the parts of a proposition may be
true or false, and the least parts as well as the greatest; and the
least parts are names, and therefore names may be true or false. Would
Hermogenes maintain that anybody may give a name to anything, and as
many names as he pleases; and would all these names be always true at
the time of giving them? Hermogenes replies that this is the only way
in which he can conceive that names are correct; and he appeals to the
practice of different nations, and of the different Hellenic tribes, in
confirmation of his view. Socrates asks, whether the things differ as
the words which represent them differ:—Are we to maintain with
Protagoras, that what appears is? Hermogenes has always been puzzled
about this, but acknowledges, when he is pressed by Socrates, that
there are a few very good men in the world, and a great many very bad;
and the very good are the wise, and the very bad are the foolish; and
this is not mere appearance but reality. Nor is he disposed to say with
Euthydemus, that all things equally and always belong to all men; in
that case, again, there would be no distinction between bad and good
men. But then, the only remaining possibility is, that all things have
their several distinct natures, and are independent of our notions
about them. And not only things, but actions, have distinct natures,
and are done by different processes. There is a natural way of cutting
or burning, and a natural instrument with which men cut or burn, and
any other way will fail;—this is true of all actions. And speaking is a
kind of action, and naming is a kind of speaking, and we must name
according to a natural process, and with a proper instrument. We cut
with a knife, we pierce with an awl, we weave with a shuttle, we name
with a name. And as a shuttle separates the warp from the woof, so a
name distinguishes the natures of things. The weaver will use the
shuttle well,—that is, like a weaver; and the teacher will use the name
well,—that is, like a teacher. The shuttle will be made by the
carpenter; the awl by the smith or skilled person. But who makes a
name? Does not the law give names, and does not the teacher receive
them from the legislator? He is the skilled person who makes them, and
of all skilled workmen he is the rarest. But how does the carpenter
make or repair the shuttle, and to what will he look? Will he not look
at the ideal which he has in his mind? And as the different kinds of
work differ, so ought the instruments which make them to differ. The
several kinds of shuttles ought to answer in material and form to the
several kinds of webs. And the legislator ought to know the different