Comparison of the Politikus with the Kratylus. Dictatorial, constructive, science or art, common to both: applied in the former to social administration — in the latter to the formation and modification of names.

Lastly, I will illustrate the Politikus by comparison with the Kratylus, which will be treated in the next chapter. The conception of dictatorial science or art, which I have stated as the principal point in the Politikus, appears again in the Kratylus applied to a different subject — naming, or the imposition of names. Right and legitimate name-giving is declared to be an affair of science or art, like right and legitimate polity: it can only be performed by the competent scientific or artistic name-giver, or by the lawgiver considered in that special capacity. The second title of the dialogue Kratylus is Περὶ Ὀνομάτων Ὀρθότητος — On the Rectitude or legitimacy of names. What constitutes right and legitimate Name-giving? In like manner, we might provide a second title for the Politikus — Περὶ Πολιτείας Ὀρθότητος — On the rectitude or legitimacy of polity or sociality. What constitutes right or legitimate sociality?63 Plato answers — It is the constant dictation and supervision of art or science — or of the scientific, artistic, dictator, who alone knows both the End and the means. This alone is right and true sociality — or sociality as it ought to be. So, if we read the Kratylus, we find Plato defining in the same way right Name-giving — or name-giving as it ought to be. It is when each name is given by an artistic name-constructor, who discerns the Form of the name naturally suitable in each particular case, and can embody it in appropriate letters and syllables.64 A true or right name signifies by likeness to the thing signified.65 The good lawgiver discerns this likeness: but all lawgivers are not good: the bad lawgiver fancies that he discerns it, but is often mistaken.66 It would be the ideal perfection of language, if every name could be made to signify by likeness to the thing named. But this cannot be realised: sufficient likenesses cannot be found to furnish an adequate stock of names. In the absence of such best standard, we are driven to eke out language by appealing to a second-best, an inferior and vulgar principle approximating more or less, to rectitude — that is, custom and convention.67

We see thus that in the Kratylus also, as well as in the Politikus, the systematic dictation of the Man of Science or Art is pronounced to be the only basis of complete rectitude. Below this, and far short of it, yet still indispensable as a supplement in real life — is, the authority of unsystematic custom or convention; not emanating from any systematic constructive Artist, but actually established (often, no one knows how) among the community, and resting upon their common sentiment, memory, and tradition.

Courage and Temperance are assumed in the Politikus. No notice taken of the doubts and difficulties raised in Lachês and Charmidês.

This is the true Platonic point of view, considering human affairs in every department, the highest as well as the lowest, as subjects of Art and Science: specialization of attributes and subdivision of function, so that the business of governing falls to the lot of one or a few highly qualified Governors: while the social edifice is assumed to have been constructed from the beginning by one of these Governors, with a view to consistent, systematic, predetermined ends — instead of that incoherent aggregate68 which is consecrated under the empire of law and custom. Here in the Politikus, we read that the great purpose of the philosophical Governor is to train all the citizens into virtuous characters: by a proper combination of Courage and Temperance, two endowments naturally discordant, yet each alike essential in its proper season and measure. The interweaving of these two forms the true Regal Web of social life.69

Such is the concluding declaration of the accomplished Eleatic expositor, to Sokrates and the other auditors. But this suggests to us another question, when we revert to some of the Platonic dialogues handled in the preceding pages. What are Virtue, Courage, Temperance? In the Menon, the Platonic Sokrates had proclaimed, that he did not himself know what virtue was: that he had never seen any one else who did know: that it was impossible to say how virtue could be communicated, until you knew what virtue was — and impossible to determine any one of the parts of virtue, until virtue had been determined as a whole. In the Charmidês, Sokrates had affirmed that he did not know what Temperance was; he then tested several explanations thereof, propounded by Charmides and Kritias: but ending only in universal puzzle and confessed ignorance. In the Lachês, he had done the same with Courage: not without various expressions of regret for his own ignorance, and of surprise at those who talked freely about generalities which they had never probed to the bottom. Perplexed by these doubts and difficulties — which perplexed yet more all his previous hearers, the modest beauty of Charmides and the mature dignity of Nikias and Laches — Sokrates now finds himself in presence of the Eleate, who talks about Virtue, Temperance, Courage, &c., as matters determinate and familiar. Here then would have been the opportunity for Sokrates to reproduce all his unsolved perplexities, and to get them cleared up by the divine Stranger who is travelling on a mission of philosophy. The third dialogue, to be called the Philosophus, which Plato promises as sequel to the Sophistês and Politikus, would have been well employed in such a work of elucidation.

Purpose of the difficulties in Plato’s Dialogues of Search — To stimulate the intellect of the hearer. His exposition does not give solutions.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Persons and subjects of the dialogue Kratylus — Sokrates has no formed opinion, but is only a Searcher with the others.

The subject proposed for discussion is, the rectitude or inherent propriety of names. How far is there any natural adaptation, or special fitness, of each name to the thing named? Two disputants are introduced who invoke Sokrates as umpire. Hermogenes asserts the negative of the question; contending that each name is destitute of natural significance, and acquires its meaning only from the mutual agreement and habitual usage of society.1 Kratylus on the contrary maintains the doctrine that each name has a natural rectitude or fitness for its own significant function:— that there is an inherent bond of connection, a fundamental analogy or resemblance between each name and the thing signified. Sokrates carries on the first part of the dialogue with Hermogenes, the last part with Kratylus.2 He declares more than once, that the subject is one on which he is ignorant, and has formed no conclusion: he professes only to prosecute the search for a good conclusion, conjointly with his two companions.3

Argument of Sokrates against Hermogenes — all proceedings of nature are conducted according to fixed laws — speaking and naming among the rest.

Sokrates, refuting Hermogenes, lays down the following doctrines.4 If propositions are either true or false, names, which are parts of propositions, must be true or false also.5 Every thing has its own fixed and determinate essence, not relative to us nor varying according to our fancy or pleasure, but existing per se as nature has arranged.6 All agencies either by one thing upon other things, or by other things upon it, are in like manner determined by nature, independent of our will and choice. If we intend to cut or burn any substance, we must go to work, not according to our own pleasure, but in the manner that nature prescribes: by attempting to do it contrary to nature, we shall do it badly or fail altogether.7 Now speaking is one of these agencies, and naming is a branch of speaking: what is true of other agencies is true of these also — we must name things, not according to our own will and pleasure, but in the way that nature prescribes that they shall be named.8 Farther, each agency must be performed by its appropriate instrument: cutting by the axe, boring by the gimlet, weaving by the bodkin. The name is the instrument of naming, whereby we communicate information and distinguish things from each other. It is a didactic instrument: to be employed well, it must be in the hands of a properly qualified person for the purpose of teaching.9 Not every man, but only the professional craftsman, is competent to fabricate the instruments of cutting and weaving. In like manner, not every man is competent to make a name: no one is competent except the lawgiver or the gifted name-maker, the rarest of all existing artists.10

The name is a didactic instrument; fabricated by the law-giver upon the type of the Name-Form, and employed as well as appreciated, by the philosopher.

To what does the lawgiver look when he frames a name? Compare the analogy of other instruments. The artisan who constructs a bodkin or shuttle for weaving, has present to his mind as a model, the Idea or Form of the bodkin — the self-existent bodkin of Nature herself. If a broken shuttle is to be replaced, it is this Idea or type, not the actual broken instrument, which he seeks to copy. Whatever may be the variety of web for which the shuttle is destined, he modifies the new instrument accordingly: but all of them must embody the Form or Idea of the shuttle. He cannot choose another type according to his own pleasure: he must embody the type, prescribed by nature, in the iron, wood, or other material of which the instrument is made.11

So about names: the lawgiver, in distributing names, must look to the Idea, Form, or type — the self-existent name of Nature — and must embody this type, as it stands for each different thing, in appropriate syllables. The syllables indeed may admit of great variety, just as the material of which the shuttle is made may be diversified: but each aggregate of syllables, whether Hellenic or barbaric, must embody the essential Name-Idea or Type.12 The lawgiver13 ought to know, enumerate, and classify all the sorts of things on the one hand, and all the varieties of letters or elements of language on the other; distinguishing the special significative power belonging to each letter. He ought then to construct his words, and adapt each to signify that with which it is naturally connected. Who is to judge whether this process has been well or ill performed? Upon that point, the judge is, the professional man who uses the instrument. It is for the working weaver to decide whether the shuttle given to him is well or ill made. To have a good ship and rudder, it must be made by a professional builder, and appreciated by a professional pilot or steersman. In like manner, the names constructed by the lawgiver must be appreciated by the man who is qualified by training or study to use names skilfully: that is, by the dialectician or philosopher, competent to ask and answer questions.14

Names have an intrinsic aptitude for signifying one thing and not another.

It is the fact then, though many persons may think it ridiculous, that names — or the elementary constituents and letters, of which names are composed — have each an intrinsic and distinctive aptitude, fitting them to signify particular things.15 Names have thus a standard with reference to which they are correct or incorrect. If they are to be correct, they cannot be given either by the freewill of an ordinary individual, or even by the convention of all society. They can be affixed only by the skilled lawgiver, and appreciated only by the skilled dialectician.

Forms of Names, as well as Forms of things nameable — essence of the Nomen, to signify the Essence of its Nominatum.

Such is the theory here laid down by Sokrates respecting Names. It is curious as illustrating the Platonic vein of speculation. It enlarges to an extreme point Plato’s region of the absolute and objective. Not merely each thing named, but each name also, is in his view an Ens absolutum; not dependent upon human choice — not even relative (so he alleges) to human apprehension. Each name has its own self-existent Idea, Form, or Type, the reproduction or copy of which is imperative. The Platonic intelligible world included Ideas of things, and of names correlative to them: just as it included Ideas of master and slave correlative to each other. It contained Noumena of names, as well as Noumena of things.16 The essence of the name was, to be significant of the essence of the thing named: though such significance admitted of diversity, multiplication, or curtailment, in the letters or syllables wherein it was embodied.17 The name became significant, by imitation or resemblance: that name was right, the essence of which imitated the essence of the thing named.18 The vocal mimic imitates sounds, the painter imitates the colours: the name-giver imitates in letters or syllables, the essence of colours, sounds, and every thing else which is nameable.

Another point here is peculiar to Plato. The Name-Giver must provide names such as can be used with effect by the dialectician or philosopher: who is the sole competent judge whether the names have genuine rectitude or not.19 We see from hence that the aspirations of Plato went towards a philosophical language fit for those who conversed with forms or essences: something like (to use modern illustrations) a technical nomenclature systematically constructed for the expositions of men of science: such as that of Chemistry, Botany, Mineralogy, &c. Assuredly no language actually spoken among men, has ever been found suitable for this purpose without much artificial help.20

Exclusive competence of a privileged lawgiver, to discern these essences, and to apportion names rightly.

As this theory of naming is a deduction from Plato’s main doctrine of absolute or self-existing Ideas, so it also illustrates (to repeat what was said in the last chapter) his recognition of professional skill and of competence vested exclusively in a gifted One or Few: which he ranks as the sole producing cause of Good or the Best, setting it in contrast with those two causes which he considers as productive of Evil, or at any rate of the Inferior or Second-Best: 1. The One or Few, who are ungifted and unphilosophical: perhaps ambitious pretenders. 2. The spontaneous, unbespoken inspirations, conventions, customs, or habits, which grow up without formal mandate among the community. To find the right name of each thing, is no light matter, nor within the competence of any one or many ordinary men. It can only be done by one of the few privileged lawgivers. Plato even glances at the necessity of a superhuman name-giver: though he deprecates the supposition generally, as a mere evasion or subterfuge, introduced to escape the confession of real ignorance.21