Plato, Cratylus, section 434b

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[434b] which were by their nature like the objects which the painter's art imitates? Is not that impossible?

Cratylus
Yes, it is impossible.

Socrates
In the same way, names can never be like anything unless those elements of which the names are composed exist in the first place and possess some kind of likeness to the things which the names imitate; and the elements of which they are composed are the letters, are they not?

Cratylus
Yes.

Socrates
Then I must now ask you to consider with me the subject which Hermogenes and I discussed a while ago.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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