Seite - 417 - in The Complete Plato

which they must do, if they are to be real names? And here I will ask you a question: Suppose that we had no voice or tongue, and wanted to communicate with one another, should we not, like the deaf and dumb, make signs with the hands and head and the rest of the body? HERMOGENES: There would be no choice, Socrates. SOCRATES: We should imitate the nature of the thing; the elevation of our hands to heaven would mean lightness and upwardness; heaviness and downwardness would be expressed by letting them drop to the ground; if we were describing the running of a horse, or any other animal, we should make our bodies and their gestures as like as we could to them. HERMOGENES: I do not see that we could do anything else. SOCRATES: We could not; for by bodily imitation only can the body ever express anything. HERMOGENES: Very true. SOCRATES: And when we want to express ourselves, either with the voice, or tongue, or mouth, the expression is simply their imitation of that which we want to express. HERMOGENES: It must be so, I think. SOCRATES: Then a name is a vocal imitation of that which the vocal imitator names or imitates? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Nay, my friend, I am disposed to think that we have not reached the truth as yet. HERMOGENES: Why not? SOCRATES: Because if we have we shall be obliged to admit that the people who imitate sheep, or cocks, or other animals, name that which they imitate. HERMOGENES: Quite true. SOCRATES: Then could I have been right in what I was saying? HERMOGENES: In my opinion, no. But I wish that you would tell me, Socrates, what sort of an imitation is a name? SOCRATES: In the first place, I should reply, not a musical imitation, although that is also vocal; nor, again, an imitation of what music imitates; these, in my judgment, would not be naming. Let me put the matter as follows: All objects have sound and figure, and many have colour? 417