 This very brief sketch of an “exoteric resolution” of the textual discrepancy between Leibniz’s use of the word “substance” in the Monadologie and the Principes de la Nature et de la Grace provides an alternative to the “developmental” and “two theory” readings of the relevant passages mentioned earlier. It suggests a more general moral for Leibniz scholarship. Whenever one is faced with texts that appear to provide conflicting remarks on an issue, it is important to consider whether an exoteric strategy that could resolve the apparent conflict might be at work. It is not easy to determine when an exoteric strategy is at work given that Leibniz rarely flags the features of his works that are exoteric within the works themselves. One must consider Leibniz’s general remarks on exoteric strategies along with any additional texts that explicitly or implicitly bear on the passages in question. It is only once all of these texts have been examined that one can argue that a particular interpretive hypothesis is the best all things considered. In some cases an esoteric/exoteric interpretation will be the most plausible; in other cases it might be more plausible to view Leibniz as having changed his views over time, or as having not fully resolved a difficult problem, among other possibilities (see Whipple 2010 for discussion of a problem where it is particularly difficult to discern the most plausible interpretation).