A Verbal ÆNIGMA, is a witty, artful, and abstruse description of any thing.—In a general sense, every dark saying, every difficult question, every parable, may pass for an ænigma. Hence obscure laws are called Enigmata Juris. The alchemists are great dealers in the ænigmatic language, their processes for the philosophers stone being generally wrapped up in riddles: e. g. Fac ex mare et semina circulum, inde quadrangulum, hinc triangulum, fac circulum, et habebis lapidem philosophorum — F. Menestrier has attempted to reduce the composition and resolution of ænigmas to a kind of art, with fixed rules and principles, which he calls the philosophy of ænigmatic images.