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[387d]

Socrates
But we saw that actions are not merely relative to us, but possess a separate nature of their own?

Hermogenes
True.

Socrates
Then in naming also, if we are to be consistent with our previous conclusions, we cannot follow our own will, but the way and the instrument which the nature of things prescribes must be employed, must they not? And if we pursue this course we shall be successful in our naming, but otherwise we shall fail.

Hermogenes
I think you are right.

Socrates
And again, what has to be cut, we said, has to be cut with something.

Hermogenes
Certainly.


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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    • J. Adam, A. M. Adam, Commentary on Plato, Protagoras, CHAPTER III
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