Preface

that, -- a charge which may possibly be brought against me, -- I in this elucidation approach a subject that is quite illicit; because, in the first place, it is with design that this art is so hidden, obscure, and involved, and because, secondly, our Abbot furthermore so severely forbade anyone, who should chance by Divine favor to receive enlightenment on the subject, to betray and disclose those Eleusimian rites; enforcing his commands most strenuously with curses, -- on the chance that his orders might perhaps not prove valid after his death or might themselves cease to exist, -- and even endeavoring, by a dire and unholy imprecation, to deter any soul from revealing secrets of this kind.  For, granting that this was the design of our author in concealing; granting that it was the design of Heraclitus, who is said always to have had on his tongue the words σκόπσον, σκόπσον, involve in shadow, make obscure:  granting that it was the design of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers, earlier and later; granting that it was the design of the ancient jurisconsults; granting, I say, that this was their design, to prevent the contents of their writings from becoming generally known; still, it did not the less redound to the glory  of Cneus Flavius, the scribe of Appius Claudius, that he made known to the Roman people the Actions at Law, which Appius had reduced to form and kept under the seal of the most inviolable secrecy; Pomponius, in l.2, de Orig. Jur.  Again, the Emperor Justinian determined absolutely to do away with the sigla and bigla, wherewith the jurisconsults endeavored to render their study of Law a secret to all but themselves;  Constit. ad Trebon., §  Nè autem; Constit. ad Senatum,  § Eadem;  Constit. ad Magnum Senatum. § Eadem; Constit. ad Antecessor., § Illud:  Nov., 47.c.2.  Who does not owe a debt of gratitude to Flaxinius and the other commentators for having remarked on the cryptology or study of secrecy, noticed in the Acroamatica of the Philosopher, and also for having lifted the cloud there from and pointed out to us the light?  And no one, I think, bears aught of spite toward Neldelius because he has disclosed the Aristotelian process, and has shown not only the fact, but also the method whereby, Aristotle has, beneath the apodeictic syllogism, most artfully concealed, for every department of learning, the didascalic syllogisms.  If some one could skillfully remove for us from Plato’s Republic, which is enwrapped in the mysteries of numbers, the outer covering, and lay the work plainly before us, no one, I suppose, would find fault with what was done, as though it were done illicitly.  Now, as regards

 our author, you may be more than fully convinced that he is not carrying on a serious piece of business.  Take as a proof the plan of the whole treatise, which, it is certain, is composed, from beginning to end, of one long intellectual jest, which, however, is artfully hidden and, as will appear very clearly from the explanation which I have prefixed, in Bk. III.c.1, to the Steganographia, enveloped in matter that offers a pretence of seriousness.  More than this, the author even himself constructed keys, as they are called, whereby to unlock the secret of this matter, and then communicated the same, thus constructed, to the Cloister first of all; and afterwards they were communicated to others, and were by these, before being explained to me, made, though in a slovenly fashion, generally known.  With such assistance, it would not have been so very laborious a task for a skilful person to discover and understand both the Modes themselves and the principles of the Modes, if the author had only at all times been consistent with himself, and had