1 66 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. i. 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 



