HERMOGENES: Why not?
SOCRATES: Because if we have we shall be obliged to admit that the people who imitate sheep, or cocks, or other animals, name that which they imitate.
HERMOGENES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Then could I have been right in what I was saying?
HERMOGENES: In my opinion, no. But I wish that you would tell me, Socrates, what sort of an imitation is a name?
SOCRATES: In the first place, I should reply, not a musical imitation, although that is also vocal; nor, again, an imitation of what music imitates; these, in my judgment, would not be naming. Let me put the matter as follows: All objects have sound and figure, and many have colour?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But the art of naming appears not to be concerned with imitations of this kind; the arts which have to do with them are music and drawing?
HERMOGENES: True.
SOCRATES: Again, is there not an essence of each thing, just as there is a colour, or sound? And is there not an essence of colour and sound as well as of anything else which may be said to have an essence?