er, be remembered that
Cardan did not seriously assert this belief till long after his
controversy with Scaliger. Naude sums up thus: "D'ou l'on peut juger
asseurement, que lui et Scaliger n'ont point eu d'autre Genie que la
grande doctrine qu'ils s'etoient acquis par leurs veilles, par leurs
travaux, et par l'experience qu'ils avoient des choses sur lesquelles
venant a elever leur jugement ils jugeoint pertinemment de toutes
matieres, et ne laissoient rien echapper qui ne leur fust conneu et
manifeste."

[171] Thuanus, ad Annum MDLXXVI, part of the Appendix to the _De Vita
Propria_.

[172] Cardan does not seem to have harboured animosity against Scaliger.
In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xlviii. p. 198, he writes: "Julius Caesar
Scaliger plures mihi titulos ascribit, quam ego mihi concedi postulassem,
appellans _ingenium profundissimum, felicissimum, et incomparabile_."

[173] "Quid tua interest quod quatuor verba adjecerim? an hoc tantum
crimen est! quid facerem absens absenti?" Cardan writes on in meditative
strain: "Coeterum cum non ignorem maculatos fuisse codices B. Hieronimi,
atque aliorum patrum nostrorum, ab his qui aliter sentiebant, erroremque
suum auctoritate viri tegere voluerunt: ut ne quis in nostris operibus
hallucinetur vel ab aliis decipiatur, sciant omnes me nullibi Theologum
agere, nec velle in alienam messem falcem ponere."--_Opera_, tom. i. p.
112.

Johannes Wierus, one of the first rationalists on the subject of
witchcraft, has quoted largely from Chapter LXXX of _De Varietate_ in his
book _De Praestigiis Daemonum_, in urging his case against the orthodox
view.

[174] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 96. "Annus hic est Salutis millesimus
quingentesimus ac sexagesimus."

[175] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 78.

CHAPTER IX

THE year 1555 may be held to mark the point of time at which Cardan
reached the highest point of his fortunes. After a long and bitter
struggle with an adverse world he had come out a conqueror, and his rise
to fame and opulence, if somewhat slow, had been steady and secure. He
longed for wealth, not that he might figure as a rich man, but so that he
might win the golden independence which permits a student to prosecute the
task which seems to subserve the highest purposes of true learning, and
frees him from the irksome battle for daily bread. He loved, indeed, to
spend money over beautiful things, and there are few more attractive
touches in the picture he draws of himself