34 JEROME CARDAN. 



case of Jerome Cardan, it is more than commonly essen- 

 tial that we know a little of the body that he carried to 

 his work, for its unsoundness influenced his conduct and 

 caused many a wise man to shrug his shoulders, both 

 among contemporaries and long afterwards, and even to 

 this day, over the question, " Had he not madness in his 

 composition 1 ?" 



As there are few, even of the rosiest among us, who 

 have bodies absolutely free from all trace of disease or 

 malformation, perfect health of body being a most rare 

 condition, so it is with perfect health of mind. Every 

 excess of one class of ideas over the just proportion in- 

 volves loss of balance. Before reasoning can master the 



1 " Verum extremes amentia fuit, imo impiae audaciae," reported 

 Thuanus, in the History of his own time, Lib. Ixii. Tom. iii. p. 462, ed. 

 Lond. 1733. Gabriel Naude', a famous bookworm, wrote an elaborate 

 but shallow criticism on Cardan, which he prefixed to the book de Vita 

 Propria, first edited by him in 1642. As an analyst of character Nau- 

 daeus does not shine ; but this criticism, based on a minute knowledge 

 of his whole works, being bound up with the only one of Cardan's books 

 usually read, has been taken for just by, I think, every succeeding 

 writer. He says, speaking of ..." gravissimorum virorum judicia, 

 qui Cardanum miras de seipso fabulas concitasse, et insanienti proximum 

 vixisse. Et hercle non video quid aliud existimari possit de homine 

 qui" . . . qui . . . qui . . . &c. The quotation down to " qui denique " 

 would be a page too long. Bayle, gathering his information about 

 Cardan from other writers, and without having read more than a single 

 book, which forms about a hundredth part of Cardan's works, delivers 

 judgment thus: "We must not say of him that his great Wit had a 

 mixture of Madness, but, on the contrary, that his Madness had a mix- 

 ture of great Wit. His Wit was only an appendix, an accessory to his 

 Madness." For my own part, I decline to affirm of any man that he is mad 

 or not mad. Strange things are said and done all over the world daily. 



