Book Two

hiddenly tell some fact; and these signs come up for consideration here. By means of them we reveal secrets in two ways: by gestures and by act; and the act may be either an act which is random or an act which is fixed. We betoken facts by gesture when we make use of signs of the body, such as the manner of holding and nodding the head; the expression of the face and the carriage and movement of the eyes, eyebrows, forehead, cheeks, front of the face, nose, and lips; the shrugging and stretching of the shoulders and neck; the movements of the hands; the hitting of the feet. On all these different methods of conveying information, see Porta, Bk.I.c.7. Winking and nodding and hitting the feet, in particular, are touched on by Schwenter, Bk.I.cc.2,3. We betoken facts by random or unfixed act when we disclose our hidden thought to another by silent roundabout actions of one sort or another. Examples of this class are given by Porta, Bk.I.c.8. Finally, we betoken facts by fixed act when the act in question has regularly, or by general understanding, a certain force to signify this or that thing. Thus, the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon, and other actions of this sort, are employed to signify certain clearly defined things; see Porta, Bk. I.c.6.

Conventional signs are such as are invested with the validity of tokens by convention and private understanding of the parties between whom the action takes place. It was thus by private understanding that Jonathan, without the knowledge of his servant, by shooting his arrows into the air revealed to David, by means of the arrow, the secret meaning of his mind, as we read in I.Sam.XX. 20, 21, 22, 35-40. It was thus that Winomadus by sending to Childericus, the banished king of the Franks, the half of a gold piece, the other half of which he had given to the king as a token at the time of the latter’s departure, announced that he could safely return to his kingdom; see Aimoinus, the Monk, De Gestis Fracor., Bk.I.c7. So, they say, the Emperors of the Turks, or, if you will, the Ottoman Sultans, through private understanding converse by means of signs with the eight Mutes, and these not only understand what is thus said to them, but are clever at expressing their own thoughts in the same way. And so, as soon as the concerted sign is given, the Mutes execute the command signified to them but unintelligible to all others present. This institution is looked upon by the Turks as a distinctive mark of sovereign dignity belonging to their Emperors, and this method of talking they call Ixarette; see Phil. Camerarius, Hor. Subc. Cent., I.c.86, p. 399.

            We reveal a fact Artificially by signs when we can make such a system of signs that to one who is privy to the arrangement they take the place of letters, enabling him to understand the sense of the symbolic writing so set down. Inasmuch as this method of secret-making by signs belongs to Cryptography, here is not the place to speak of it further. See Bk. VIII. c. 11.