KELIGIOX. 53 



His body was ailing, his mind wanted health; he feared 

 lest, by a premature close to his life, he might be pre- 

 vented from leaving to posterity such proofs of wisdom as 

 might win for him undying praise. He sought praise as 

 the end of his existence, and exercise of intellect as the 

 most worthy means to such an end. Ambition to produce 

 the utmost good, to develop every talent and apply it 

 carefully to that work in which it would do all that it 

 could be made to do in aid of the real progress of humanity, 

 glorified the life of the obscure French potter, Bernard 

 Palissy 1 , really the best of Cardan's philosophical contem- 

 poraries. Cardan, who won to himself in his own lifetime 

 world-wide fame, was conscious of no higher motive to 

 exertion than anxiety to be remembered as a great phi- 

 losopher. But that was no mean care. 



Because the superstition of Cardan did not at all times 

 take an orthodox complexion, he has been ranked on 

 more than one occasion among atheists. Thus, for ex- 

 ample, he was set down by Theophilus Raynaud, in his 

 treatise on good and bad books 2 , as the first atheist of the 



1 " Je n'ai trouve rien meilleur que de suivre le conseil de Dieu . . 

 II a command e a ses heri tiers qu'ils eussent a manger le pain au labeur 

 de letir corps et qu'ils eussent a multiplier les talens qu'il leur avoit 

 laissez par son Testament. Quoi considere je n'ay voulu cacher en 

 terre les talens qu'il luy a pleu me distribuer," &c. Palissy to the 

 Marshal Montmorenci. 



2 " Homo nullius religionis ac fidei, et inter clancularios atheos se- 

 cundi ordinis a3vo suo facile princeps." Father Reynaud De bonis ac 

 malis Libris, quoted by Bayle in his Dictionary. 



