make or repair the shuttle, and to what will he look? Will he not look at
the ideal which he has in his mind? And as the different kinds of work
differ, so ought the instruments which make them to differ. The several
kinds of shuttles ought to answer in material and form to the several kinds
of webs. And the legislator ought to know the different materials and
forms of which names are made in Hellas and other countries. But who is to
be the judge of the proper form? The judge of shuttles is the weaver who
uses them; the judge of lyres is the player of the lyre; the judge of ships
is the pilot. And will not the judge who is able to direct the legislator
in his work of naming, be he who knows how to use the names--he who can ask
and answer questions--in short, the dialectician? The pilot directs the
carpenter how to make the rudder, and the dialectician directs the
legislator how he is to impose names; for to express the ideal forms of
things in syllables and letters is not the easy task, Hermogenes, which you
imagine.

'I should be more readily persuaded, if you would show me this natural
correctness of names.'

Indeed I cannot; but I see that you have advanced; for you now admit that
there is a correctness of names, and that not every one can give a name.
But what is the nature of this correctness or truth, you must learn from
the Sophists, of whom your brother Callias has bought his reputation for
wisdom rather dearly; and since they require to be paid, you, having no
money, had better learn from him at second-hand. 'Well, but I have just
given up Protagoras, and I should be inconsistent in going to learn of
him.' Then if you reject him you may learn of the poets, and in particular
of Homer, who distinguishes the names given by Gods and men to the same
things, as in the verse about the river God who fought with Hephaestus,
'whom the Gods call Xanthus, and men call Scamander;' or in the lines in