of deception about names? He who first gave names, gave them according to his conception, and that may have been erroneous. “But then, why, Socrates, is language so consistent? all words have the same laws.” Mere consistency is no test of truth. In geometrical problems, for example, there may be a flaw at the beginning, and yet the conclusion may follow consistently. And, therefore, a wise man will take especial care of first principles. But are words really consistent; are there not as many terms of praise which signify rest as which signify motion? There is episteme, which is connected with stasis, as mneme is with meno. Bebaion, again, is the expression of station and position; istoria is clearly descriptive of the stopping istanai of the stream; piston indicates the cessation of motion; and there are many words having a bad sense, which are connected with ideas of motion, such as sumphora, amartia, etc.: amathia, again, might be explained, as e ama theo iontos poreia, and akolasia as e akolouthia tois pragmasin. Thus the bad names are framed on the same principle as the good, and other examples might be given, which would favour a theory of rest rather than of motion. “Yes; but the greater number of words express motion.” Are we to count them, Cratylus; and is correctness of names to be determined by the voice of a majority? Here is another point: we were saying that the legislator gives names; and therefore we must suppose that he knows the things which he names: but how can he have learnt things from names before there were any names? “I believe, Socrates, that some power more than human first gave things their names, and that these were necessarily true names.” Then how came the giver of names to contradict himself, and to make some names expressive of rest, and others of motion? “I do not suppose that he did make them both.” Then which did he make—those which are expressive of rest, or those which are expressive of motion?...But if some names are true and others false, we can only decide between them, not by counting words, but by appealing to things. And, if so, we must allow that things may be known without names; for names, as we have several times admitted, are the images of things; and the higher knowledge is of things, and is not to be derived from names; and though I do not doubt that the inventors of language gave names, under the idea that all things are in a state of motion and flux, I believe that they were mistaken; and that having fallen into a whirlpool themselves, they are trying to drag us after them. For is there not a true beauty and a true good, which is always beautiful and always good? Can the thing beauty be vanishing away from us while the words are yet in our mouths? And they could not be known by any one if they are always passing away—for if they are always passing away, the observer has no opportunity of observing their state. Whether the doctrine of the flux