CARDAN'S u BOOK OF THE GREAT ART." 273 



Osiandcr. To him Jerome dedicated, with a proper sense 

 of gratitude and literary courtesy, his Algebra, as to a 

 man " most learned in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Mathe- 

 matics, but rather," he says, " because it appeared to me 

 that this my work could be dedicated to no man more 

 fitly than to yourself, by whom it may be emended (if my 

 erring hand has ill obeyed the mandates of the mind) and 

 read with enjoyment and understanding, from whom also 

 it can receive authoritative commendation. . . . Accept, 

 therefore, this lasting testimony of my love towards you, 

 and of your kind offices towards me, as well as of your 

 distinguished erudition 1 ." 



Very genuine in Cardan is the feeling that prompts all 

 his dedications. His books are always inscribed in acknow- 

 ledgment of kindness to the men who had a claim upon 

 his gratitude, never to men whom he hoped thereby to 

 make grateful and liberal towards himself. They were the 

 scholar's courtesies bestowed where they were due; he 

 never carried them to market. 



Cardan stated at the beginning of his Algebra that, as 

 his work chiefly went into new ground, he should <; deco- 

 rate with the names" of the discoverer inventions not his 

 own, and that all matter not ascribed to other men would 

 be his own. The whole book was original, in fact, with 

 the exception of those few rules from which he started, 

 1 Ars Magna. Opera, Tom. iv. p. 221. 



VOL. I. T 



