Sickness, even when it contained elements that were difficult to decipher, and when the greater part of its truth remained hidden, was no longer to be characterised in such terms: there was always now a singular truth within it on the level of the most apparent phenomena, on the basis of which it was henceforth to be defined: If a general or a captain only specified in a description the hidden marks that his soldiers carried on their body, or some other hidden means of identification not visible to the naked eye, however hard one looked for deserters, they would never be found.