the author as a contribution to natural science, and should be almost entirely free from the superstitious whims and hallucinations which, while leaving his faculties as a thinker and a natural philosopher almost unaffected, fre quently misled him in the affairs of practical life. Nume rous instances of his belief in dreams and omens may be collected from his writings, and he especially valued him self on being one of the five or six celebrated men to whom, as to Socrates, had been vouchsafed the assistance
of a guardian daemon.Cardan s authorship may have interferedwith his medical practice, and he himself ingenuously confesses that he and his family were mainly supported during a considerable part of this period by the complaisance of a Milanese patrician, who allowed him to win of him at play. The sudden loss of this resource reduced him for a time to penury, from which he was extricated by receiving the appointment of professor of medicine at Pavia. The publication of his works on algebra and astrology at this juncture gave him a European renown, and procured him flattering offers from Pope Paul III and the king of Denmark, both of which he declined. In 1551 his reputa tion was crowned by the publication of his great work De Subtilitate Rerum, which, crude and fanciful as it may now appear, in his own age embodied the soundest physical learning of the time and simultaneously represented its most advanced spirit of speculation. It was followed some years later by a similar treatise De Varietate Rerum, the two making in effect but one book. A great portion of this is occupied by endeavours, commonly futile, to explain ordinary natural phenomena, but its chief interest for us consists in the hints and glimpses it affords of principles beyond the full comprehension of the writer himself, and which the world was then by no means ready to entertain. The inorganic realm of Nature he asserts to be animated no less than the organic ; all creation is progressive development ; all animals were origin ally worms ; the inferior metals must be regarded as conatus natures towards the production of gold. The in lefinite variability of species is implied in the remark that Nature is seldom content with a single variation from a customary type. The oviparous habits of birds are explained by their tendency to favour the perpetuation of the species, precisely in the manner of modern naturalists. Animals were not created for the use of man, but exist for their own sakes. The origin of life depends upon cosmic laws, which Cardan naturally connects with his favourite study of astrology. The physical divergencies of mankind arise from the effects of climate, and the variety of human circum stances in general. Cardan s views on the dissimilarity of languages are much more philosophical than usual at his time ; and his treatise altogether, though weak in particular details, is strong in its pervading sense of the unity and omnipotence of natural law, which renders it in some degree an adumbration of the course of science since the author s day. It was attacked by J. C. Scaliger, whom Cardan refuted without difficulty.
The celebrity which Cardan had acquired led in the Bame year (1551) to one of the most interesting episodes of his life, his journey to Scotland as the medical adviser of Archbishop Hamilton of St Andrews. The archbishop was supposed to be suffering from consumption, a complaint which Cardan, under a false impression, as he frankly admits, had represented himself as competent to cure. Failing to meet his patient at Lyons as had been arranged, he was induced to continue his joiirney to Scotland. He was of great service to the archbishop, whose complaint proved to be asthmatical ; but the principal interest attaching to his expedition is derived from his account of the disputes of the medical faculty at Paris, and of the court of Edward VI. of England, particulars which he had an opportunity of observing in going and returning. The Parisian doctors were disturbed by the heresies of Vesalius, who was beginning to introduce anatomical study from the human subject. Cardan s liberality of temper led him to sympathize with the innovator. His account of Edward VI. s disposition and understanding is extremely favourable, and is entitled to credit as that of a competent observer without bias towards either side of the religious question. He cast the king s nativity, and indulged in a number of predictions which were effectually confuted by the royal youth s death in the following year. His impressions of England seem to have been very pleasant.
Cardan had now attained the summit of his prosperity, and the rest of his life was little but a series of disasters. His principal misfortunes arose from the crimes and calamities of his sons, one of whom was an utter reprobate, while the tragic fate of the other overwhelmed the father with anguish. This son, Giovanni Battista, also a physi cian, had contracted an imprudent marriage with a girl of indifferent character, Brandonia Seroni, who subsequently proved unfaithful to him. The injured husband revenged himself in the Italian fashion with poison ; the deed was detected, and the exceptional severity of the punishment seems to justify Cardan in attributing it to the rancour of his medical rivals, with whom he had never at any time been on good terms. He exerted himself greatly as his son s advocate, but to no purpose. The blow all but crushed him ; his reputation and his practice waned ; he addicted himself to gaming, a vice to which he had always been prone ; his mind became unhinged, and filled with distempered imaginations. He was ultimately banished from Milan on some accusation not specified, and although the decree was ultimately rescinded, he found it advisable to accept a professorship at Bologna (1563). While resid ing there in moderate comfort, and mainly occupied with the composition of supplements to his former works, he was suddenly arrested on a charge not stated, but in all pro bability heresy. Though he had always been careful to keep on terms with the .Church, the bent of his mind had been palpably towards free thought, and the circumstance had probably attracted the attention of Pius V., who then ruled the Church in the spirit, as he had formerly exercised the functions, of an inquisitor. Through the intercession, as would appear, of some influential cardinals, Cardan was released, but was deprived of his professorship, prohibited from teaching and publishing any further, and removed to Rome, where he spent his remaining years in receipt of a pension from the Pope. It seems to have been urged in his favour that his intellect had been disturbed by grief for the loss of his son, an assertion to which his frequent hallucinations lent some countenance, though the existence of any serious derangement is disproved by the lucidity and coherence of his last writings. He occupied his time at Rome in the composition of his commentaries De Vita, Propria, which, along with a companion treatise De Libris Propriis, is our principal authority for his biography. Though he had burned much, he left behind him more than a hundred MSS., not twenty of which have been printed. He died on September 20, 1576.
most interesting personages connected with the revival of science in Europe. He had no especial bent towards any scientific pursuit, but appears as the man of versatile ability, delighting in research for its own sake, and capable of prosecuting it to great lengths by dint of perseverance and sagacity. He possessed the true scientific spirit in perfection ; nothing, he tells us, among the king ^ of France s treasures appeared to him so worthy of admira
tion as a certain natural curiosity which he took for the
