262 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



be less solicitous about the trunk or body of them, and bend 

 his care to preserve the roots, and draw them out with some 

 little earth about them. Of this kind of transplantation 

 there is some resemblance in the method of mathemati 

 cians; 2 but in general we do not see that it is either used 

 or inquired after; we therefore place it among the deficien 

 cies, under the name of the traditive lamp, or a method for 

 posterity. 3 



There is another difference of method, bearing some re 

 lation to the former intention, though in reality almost op 

 posite to it; both of them have this in common, that they 

 separate the vulgar audience from the select; but herein 

 they are opposite, that the former introduces a more open 

 and the other a more secret way of instruction than the 

 common; hence let them be distinguished, by terming 

 the former plain or open, and the latter the learned or 

 concealed method, thus transferring to the manner of de 

 livery the difference made use of by the ancients, especially 

 in publishing their books. This concealed or enigmatical 

 method was itself also employed by the ancients with pru 

 dence and judgment, but is of late dishonored by many, 

 who use it as a false light to set off their counterfeit wares. 

 The design of it seems to have been, by the veil of tradi 

 tion, to keep the vulgar from the secrets of sciences, and to 

 admit only such as had, by the help of a master, attained 

 to the interpretation of dark sayings, or were able, by the 

 strength of their own genius, to enter within the veil. 



The next difference of method is of great moment with 

 regard to the sciences, as these are delivered either in the 

 way of aphorism or methodically. It highly deserves to be 



2 To this purpose see Wolfius &quot;Brevis Commentatio de Metliodo Mathemat- 

 ica,&quot; prefixed to his &quot;Elementa Matheseos Universes&quot;; as also his &quot;Logics and 

 Metaphysics. &quot; Shaw. 



3 Perhaps M. Tschirnhaus s &quot;Medicina Mentis, sive Tentamen genuinse 

 Logicse, in qua disseritur de Methodo detegendi incognitas Veritates,&quot; may 

 pave the way for supplying this desideratum ; proceeding as it does upon a 

 mathematical and algebraical foundation, to raise a method of discovering 

 unknown truths. Shaw. 



