Cratylus: That's right. But you see, Socrates, when we assign 'a' or 'b' and each of the other letters to names by using the craft of grammar, if we add, subtract, or transpose a letter, we don't simply write the name incorrectly, we don't write it at all, for it immediately becomes a different name, if any of those things happens.
Socrates: That's not a good way for us to look at the matter, Cratylus.
Cratylus: Why not?
Socrates: What you say may well be true of numbers, which have to be a certain number or not be at all. For example, if you add anything to the number ten or subtract anything from it, it immediately becomes a different number, and the same is true of any other number you choose. But this isn't the sort of correctness that belongs to things with sensory qualities, such as images in general. Indeed, the opposite is true of them -- an image cannot remain an image if it presents all the details of what it represents. See if I'm right. Would there be two things -- Cratylus and an image of Cratylus -- in the following circumstances? Suppose some god didn't just represent your colour and shape the way painters do, but made all the inner parts like yours, with the same warmth and softness, and put motion, soul, and wisdom like yours into them -- in a word, suppose he made a duplicate of everything you have and put it beside you. Would there then be two Cratyluses or Cratylus and an image of Cratylus?
Cratylus: It seems to me, Socrates, that there would be two Cratyluses.
