  Socrates’ and Hermogenes’ assumption throughout the etymological section is that, by decoding the philosophically significant Greek vocabulary, they are reading off from it the beliefs of those early members of their race who first gave things their names. It is in this sense that they assume etymology to work: it really can decode words and thus read the mindset of our early ancestors. Moreover, in keeping with his culture’s veneration for antiquity, Socrates respects whatever insights the ancients prove to have had into many cosmological matters, above all their recognition, which emerges on nearly every page, that intelligence is the key factor in the world’s structure.