a 
166 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XV.3. 
in use; and besides which axioms, there are divers moe 
touching help of memory, not inferior to them. But I did 
in the beginning distinguish, not to report those things 
deficient, which are but only ill managed. 
XVI. 1. There remaineth the fourth kind of rational 
knowledge, which is transitive, concerning the expressing 
or transferring our knowledge to others; which I will 
term by the general name of tradition or delivery. Tra- 
dition hath three parts; the first concerning the organ of 
tradition ; the second concerning the method of tradition ; 
and the third concerning the illustration of tradition, 
2. For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or 
writing: for Aristotle saith well, Words are the images of 
cogitations, and letters are the images of words. But yet 
it is not of necessity that cogitations be expressed by 
the medium of words. For whatsoever is capable of 
sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense, 
is in nature competent to express cogitations. And there- 
fore we see in the commerce of barbarous people, that 
understand not one another’s language, and in the prac- 
tice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that men’s minds 
are expressed in gestures, though not exactly, yet to 
serve the turn. And we understand further, that it is 
the use of China, and the kingdoms of the High Levant, 
to write in characters real, which express neither letters 
nor words in gross, but things or notions; insomuch as 
countries and provinces, which understand not one an- 
other’s language, can nevertheless read one another’s 
writings, because the characters are accepted more gener- 
ally than the languages do extend; and therefore they 
have a vast multitude of characters, as many (I suppose) 
as radical words. | 
3. These notes of cogitations are of two sorts ; the one 
