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We may now consider (I) how far Plato in the Cratylus has discovered the
true principles of language, and then (II) proceed to compare modern
speculations respecting the origin and nature of language with the
anticipations of his genius.

I. (1) Plato is aware that language is not the work of chance; nor does he
deny that there is a natural fitness in names. He only insists that this
natural fitness shall be intelligibly explained. But he has no idea that
language is a natural organism. He would have heard with surprise that
languages are the common work of whole nations in a primitive or semi-
barbarous age. How, he would probably have argued, could men devoid of art
have contrived a structure of such complexity? No answer could have been
given to this question, either in ancient or in modern times, until the
nature of primitive antiquity had been thoroughly studied, and the
instincts of man had been shown to exist in greater force, when his state
approaches more nearly to that of children or animals. The philosophers of
the last century, after their manner, would have vainly endeavoured to
trace the process by which proper names were converted into common, and
would have shown how the last effort of abstraction invented prepositions
and auxiliaries. The theologian would have proved that language must have
had a divine origin, because in childhood, while the organs are pliable,
the intelligence is wanting, and when the intelligence is able to frame
conceptions, the organs are no longer able to express them. Or, as others
have said: Man is man because he has the gift of speech; and he could not
have invented that which he is. But this would have been an 'argument too
subtle' for Socrates, who rejects the theological account of the origin of
language 'as an excuse for not giving a reason,' which he compares to the
introduction of the 'Deus ex machina' by the tragic poets when they have to