170 JEROME CARDAN. 



I may call it a virtue never from my youth up to have 

 uttered falsehood 1 ." " Beyond all mortals," he says in 

 another work, " I hate a lie 2 ." And though he has him- 

 self confessed one boyish falsehood, and may have been 

 guilty of dozens while his unformed mind was grow- 

 ing up under corrupt influence, it is not the less consistent 

 with the strongest passion for truth, that Cardan should 

 exclaim out of the energy of manhood, " I do not remem- 

 ber that I ever told a lie, and, to defend my life, I would 

 not do it 3 ." We may accept it, therefore, as a fact, that 

 Jerome always speaks literal truth, and generally speaks 

 his mind in plain words, that are only too unguarded. He 

 does not use even the reservation that is necessary to pre- 

 serve a semblance of consistency before the crowd of casual 

 observers. By making known too much about himself, he 

 only puzzled steady men, with whom it had become a 

 second nature to put out of sight the variations that arise 

 within us all as time runs on, of memory, of mood, and of 

 opinion. 



To these considerations we must, however, add the fact 

 that Jerome was by no means perfect in his ethics. Every 

 honest man now holds that words so purposely contrived 

 as to be true in themselves, but false in the impression 



1 De Vit. Prop. cap. xiv. 



2 De Varietate Rerum, Lib. xvi. cap. 93, p. 635 (ed. Bas. 1557). 



3 "Nos autem non recordamur unquam mendacium dixisse, nee 

 si pro vita tuenda dicendum esset, diceremus." 



