some clearly-defined end. His idea of literary art is not the absolute
proportion of the whole, such as we appear to find in a Greek temple or
statue; nor should his works be tried by any such standard. They have
often the beauty of poetry, but they have also the freedom of conversation.
'Words are more plastic than wax' (Rep.), and may be moulded into any form.
He wanders on from one topic to another, careless of the unity of his work,
not fearing any 'judge, or spectator, who may recall him to the point'
(Theat.), 'whither the argument blows we follow' (Rep.). To have
determined beforehand, as in a modern didactic treatise, the nature and
limits of the subject, would have been fatal to the spirit of enquiry or
discovery, which is the soul of the dialogue...These remarks are applicable
to nearly all the works of Plato, but to the Cratylus and Phaedrus more
than any others. See Phaedrus, Introduction.

There is another aspect under which some of the dialogues of Plato may be
more truly viewed:--they are dramatic sketches of an argument. We have
found that in the Lysis, Charmides, Laches, Protagoras, Meno, we arrived at
no conclusion--the different sides of the argument were personified in the
different speakers; but the victory was not distinctly attributed to any of
them, nor the truth wholly the property of any. And in the Cratylus we
have no reason to assume that Socrates is either wholly right or wholly
wrong, or that Plato, though he evidently inclines to him, had any other
aim than that of personifying, in the characters of Hermogenes, Socrates,
and Cratylus, the three theories of language which are respectively
maintained by them.

The two subordinate persons of the dialogue, Hermogenes and Cratylus, are
at the opposite poles of the argument. But after a while the disciple of
the Sophist and the follower of Heracleitus are found to be not so far
removed from one another as at first sight appeared; and both show an