OPENING FOR PRACTICE. 73 



part of the population of the district. In 1529 the 

 miserable wars abated, and Cardan made an attempt to 

 fix himself in Milan, for he regarded that town as his 

 proper home. The attempt failed, as will presently be 

 shown, and the adventurer having returned to Sacco, con- 

 tinued to live there during three or four more years. 

 ' At Sacco, in which town he began to reside by way 

 of omen perhaps on his birthday 1 , that is to say, on the 

 24th of September (1526), Cardan established himself in a 

 house of his own, practised his profession, gambled, spent 

 his money, and had no lack of holiday friends. (The belief, 

 founded on his horoscope, that he would die in middle 

 age, and a desponding sense of inability to marry, caused 

 the young physician to care little for the morrow. The 

 consciousness of impotence had weighed upon him for 

 about four years when he went to Sacco, and continued 

 unabated until he was more than thirty years of age 2 . It 

 was the greatest trouble of his life during those years 

 which formed, in other respects, the happiest part of his 

 existence. To feel, or to confess, that he was absolutely 

 happy was not in the nature of Cardan. The conditions 

 necessary to true happiness were absent from his mind. 

 To the child whose character is forming the accidents of 



1 De Libris Propr. (ed. 1557) p. 13. A work entitled " Epidemia " 

 begins thus: " Anno MDXXVI. die xxiv. Septembris qua mihi nata- 

 lis fuit, contuli me in Saccense oppidum." 



2 De Ut. ex Adv. Capiend. Lib. ii. cap. 9. 



