Plato, Cratylus, section 423e

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[423e]

Socrates
Here is another point. Has not each thing an essential nature, just as it has a color and the other qualities we just mentioned? Indeed, in the first place, have not color and sound and all other things which may properly be said to exist, each and all an essential nature?

Hermogenes
I think so.

Socrates
Well, then, if anyone could imitate this essential nature of each thing by means of letters and syllables, he would show what each thing really is, would he not?

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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