Plato, Cratylus, section 438c

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[438c]

Cratylus
I think the truest theory of the matter, Socrates, is that the power which gave the first names to things is more than human, and therefore the names must necessarily be correct.

Socrates
Then, in your opinion, he who gave the names, though he was a spirit or a god, would have given names which made him contradict himself? Or do you think there is no sense in what we were saying just now?

Cratylus
But, Socrates, those that make up one of the two classes are not really names.

Socrates
Which of the two, my excellent friend; the class of those which point towards rest or of those that point towards motion? We agreed just now that the matter is not to be determined by mere numbers.

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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