Why did Cratylean onomastics posit a ‘natural’ link between ‘correct’ names and the ‘essence’ of their co-relative objects? Was the belief in the inter-inherence of names and things merely the figment of a ‘primitive mentality’? Or was it based on what was then considered to be something like what we would call objective reality? To answer these questions this essay looks at the ‘physics’ underlying Cratylean linguistic naturalism, especially Heracliteian ideas on ontogenesis. It also takes into consideration recent findings in the area of comparative Indo-European poetics. This is important because research in this area sheds significant light on a number of points of interest in the Dialogue bearing the name of Plato’s erstwhile preceptor. For example, it elucidates what is suggested in the Dialogue about the ‘pneumatic’ substrate of speech being the medium via which names are linked quasi-physically to their corresponding designata. It also lends credence to the idea that Cratylism is the linguistic and theoretical corollary of the widespread belief in the efficacy of incantatory magic.