Such is the light in which these Platonic etymologies appear to a modern critic. But such was not the light in which they appeared either to the ancient Platonists, or to critics earlier than the last century. The Platonists even thought them full of mysterious and recondite wisdom. Dionysius of Halikarnassus highly commends Plato for his speculations on etymology, especially in the Kratylus.[31] Plutarch cites some of the most singular etymologies in the Kratylus as serious and instructive. The modesty of the Protagorean formula becomes here especially applicable: for so complete has been the revolution of opinion, that the Platonic etymologies are now treated by most critics as too absurd to have been seriously intended by Plato, even as conjectures. It is called “a valuable discovery of modern times” (so Schleiermacher[32] terms it) that Plato meant all or most of them as mere parody and caricature. We are now told that it was not Plato who misconceived the analogies, conditions, and limits, of etymological transition, but others; whom Plato has here set himself to expose and ridicule, by mock etymologies intended to parody those which they had proposed as serious. If we ask who the persons thus ridiculed were, we learn that they were the Sophists, Protagoras, or Prodikus, with others; according to Schleiermacher, Antisthenes among them.[33]
[31] Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verb. a. 16, p. 196, Schaefer. τὰ κράτιστα δὲ νέμω, ὡς πρώτῳ τὸν ὑπὲρ ἐτυμολογίας εἰσάγοντι λόγον, Πλάτωνι τῷ Σωκρατικῷ, πολλαχῇ μὲν καὶ ἄλλοθι, μάλιστα δὲ ἐν τῷ Κρατύλῳ.
About Plato’s etymologies, as seriously intended, see Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, p. 375 C-D-E, with the note of Wyttenbach. Harris, in his Hermes (pp. 369-370-407), alludes to the etymologies of Plato in the Kratylus as being ingenious, though disputable, but not at all as being derisory caricatures. Indeed the etymology of Scientia, which he cites from Scaliger, p. 370, is quite as singular as any in the Kratylus. Sydenham (Notes to the translation of Plato’s Philêbus, p. 35) calls the Kratylus “a dialogue, in which is taught the nature of things, as well the permanent as the transient, from a supposed etymology of names and words.
I find, in the very instructive comments of Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch (Part iv. ch. 24, p. 250), a citation from St. Augustine, illustrating the view which I believe Plato to have taken of these etymologies: “Quo loco prorsus non arbitror prætereundum, quod pater Valerius animadvertit admirans, in quorundam rusticanorum (i.e., Africans, near Carthage) collocutione. Cum enim alter alteri dixisset Salus — quæsivit ab eo, qui et Latiné nosset et Punicé, quid esset Salus: responsum est, Tria. Tum ille agnoscens cum gaudio, salutem nostram esse Trinitatem, convenientiam linguarum non fortuitu sic sonuisse arbitratus est, sed occultissimâ dispensatione divinæ providentiæ — ut cum Latiné nominatur Salus, à Punicis intelligantur Tria — et cum Punici linguâ suâ Tria nominant, Latiné intelligatur Salus … Sed hæc verborum consonantia, sive provenerit sive provisa sit, non pugnaciter agendum est ut ei quisque consentiat, sed quantum interpretantis elegantiam hilaritas audientis admittit.”
So in the etymologies of the Kratylus: Plato follows out threads of analogy, which, with indulgent hearers, he reckons will be sufficient for proof: and which, even when not accepted as proof, will be pleasing to the fancy of unbelieving hearers, as they are to his own. There is no intention to caricature: no obvious absurdities piled up with a view to caricature.
[32] Schleiermacher, Introduction to Kratylus, vol. iv. p. 6: “Dagegen ist viel gewonnen durch die Entdeckung neuerer Zeiten,” &c. To the same purpose, Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., part ii. p. 402, edit. 2nd, and Brandis, Gesch. Gr. Röm. Phil., part ii. sect. cvii. p. 285.
Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Cratylum, p. 4, says: “Quod mirum est non esse ab iis animadversum, qui Platonem putaverunt de linguæ et vocabulorum origine hoc libro suam sententiam explicare voluisse. Isti enim adeo nihil senserunt irrisionis, ut omnia atque singula pro philosophi decretis venditarint, ideoque ei absurdissima quæque commenta affinxerint. Ita Menagius.… Nec Tiedemannus Argum, Dial. Plat. multo rectius judicat. Irrisionem primi senserunt Garnierius et Tennemann.” &c. Stallbaum, moreover, is perpetually complaining in his notes, that the Etymological Lexicons adopt Plato’s derivations as genuine. Ménage (ad Diogen. Laert. iii. 25) declares most of the etymologies of Plato in the Kratylus to be ψευδέτυμα, but never hints at the supposition that they are intended as caricatures. During the centuries between Plato and Ménage, men had become more critical on the subject of etymology: in the century after Ménage, they had become more critical still, as we may see by the remarks of Turgot on the etymologies of Ménage himself.
The following are the remarks of Turgot, in the article ‘Etymologie’ (Encycl. Franc. in Turgot’s collected works, vol. iii. p. 33): “Ménage est un exemple frappant des absurdités dans lesquelles on tombe, en adoptant sans choix ce que suggère la malheureuse facilité de supposer tout ce qui est possible: car il est très vrai qu’il ne fait aucune supposition dont la possibilité ne soit justifiée par des exemples. Mais nous avons prouvé qu’en multipliant à volonté les altérations intermédiaires, soit dans le son, soit dans la signification, il est aisé de dériver un mot quelconque de tout autre mot donné: c’est le moyen d’expliquer tout, et dès-lors de ne rien expliquer; c’est le moyen aussi de justifier tous les mépris de l’ignorance.”
Steinhart (Einleitung zum Kratylus, pp. 551-552) agrees with Stallbaum to a certain extent, that Plato in the Kratylus intended to mock and caricature the bad etymologists of his own day; yet also that parts of the Kratylus are seriously intended. And he declares it almost impossible to draw a line between the serious matter and the caricature.
It appears to me that the Platonic critics here exculpate Plato from the charge of being a bad etymologist, only by fastening upon him another intellectual defect quite as serious.