i68 



BACON 



sible to decipher, it is still subject to examination and question, 

 unless there be no room to suspect or examine it. 



There is a new and useful invention to elude the examination 

 of a cipher ; viz., to have two alphabets, the one of significant, 

 and the other of non-significant letters; and folding up two 

 writings together, the one conveying the secret, whilst the 

 other is such as the writer might probably send without danger. 

 In case of a strict examination about the cipher, the bearer is to 

 produce the non-significant alphabet for the true, and the true 

 for the non-significant; by which means the examiner would 

 fall upon the outward writing, and, finding it probable, suspect 

 nothing of the inner. 



But to prevent all suspicion, we shall here annex a cipher of 

 our own, that we devised at Paris in our youth, and which has 

 the highest perfection of a cipher that of signifying omnia per 

 omnia (anything by everything), provided only the matter in- 

 cluded be five times less than that which includes it, without 

 any other condition or limitation. The invention is this : first 

 let all the letters of the alphabet be resolved into two only, by 

 repetition and transposition ; for a transposition of two letters 

 through five places, or different arrangements, will denote two 

 and thirty differences, and consequently fewer, or four and 

 twenty, the number of letters in our alphabet, as in the follow- 

 ing example : 



A BILITERAL ALPHABET 



Consisting only of a and b changed through five places, so as to represent 

 all the letters of the common alphabet 



aaaaa 

 aaaab 

 aaaba 

 aaabb 

 aabaa 

 aabab 

 aabba 

 aabbb 



I 



K 



L 



M 

 N 

 O 

 P 

 Q 



abaaa 

 abaab 

 ababa 

 ababb 

 abbaa 

 abbab 

 abbba 

 abbbb 



R 



S 



T 



V 



W 



X 



Y 



Z 



baaaa 

 baaab 

 baaba 

 baabb 

 babaa 

 babab 

 babba 

 babbb 



Thus, in order to write an A, you write five a's, or aaaaa ; and to 

 write a B, you write four a's and one b, or aaaab ; and so of the 

 rest. 



And here, by the way, we gain no small advantage, as this 

 contrivance shows a method of expressing and signifying one's 

 mind to any distance, by objects that are either visible or audi- 



