280 JEROME CARDAN. 



Minute explanation of the twelve houses of the twelve 

 signs, and of what Mars meant by being in one, and 

 what the Sun and Venus meant by being together in 

 another, while the Moon was in a third, is rendered the 

 less necessary by the fact that the sketch of his own future, 

 drawn by Cardan from this nativity, was emphatically 

 incorrect. What the stars pronounced strongly against 

 did happen, and what did happen the stars did not 

 indicate at all. 



Concerning his skill as an astrologer, Cardan said in 

 his dedication that " the ungrateful condition of the times 

 was such that no prayers or rewards would induce him 

 again to exercise his art." A certain bishop at Rome 

 held, he said, unwittingly, the last example of his skill 

 in it. 



Although there was at the time, happily, some ten- 

 dency to ridicule astrology, still the supporters of that 

 science were not few, nor had its professors, when gain 

 only was their object, any reason to complain, for it 

 was among the wealthy that it found most liberal support; 

 princes and nobles still amused themselves as amateur 

 astrologers, and these were ready to pay liberally for the 

 aid and countenance they had from scientific men. 

 Cardan's way to the favour of the rich at any rate might 

 have been much more difficult had there been less to 

 favour superstition in his character. The practice of 

 astrology Jerome abjured as vainly as the toper might 



