 The ancients distinguished the ‘exoteric’ [exoterique] or popular mode of exposition [maniere d’ecrire] from the ‘esoteric’ [acroamatique] one which is suitable for those who are seriously concerned to discover the truth; and that distinction is relevant here. If anyone wants to write like a mathematician in metaphysics or moral philosophy there is nothing to prevent him from rigorously doing so; some have announced that they would do this, and have promised us mathematical demonstrations outside mathematics, but it is extremely seldom that anyone has succeeded. I believe that people are repelled by the amount of trouble they would have to take for a tiny number of readers: like the question in Persius, ‘Who will read this?’, with its answer ‘Maybe a couple of people, maybe no one’. Yet I think that if anyone did go about it in the right way, he would have no reason to regret his labour. I have been tempted to try it myself. (NE: 260–261)