288 JEROME CARDAN. 



Cardan had always a purpose in his writing. Astrology 

 and kindred topics were supposed nearly to concern the 

 daily interests of life ; Arithmetic and Algebra concerned 

 them really. " Make a book," said Cardan, in another 

 of his aphorisms 1 "make a book that will fulfil a pur- 

 pose, use will give it polish; then, but not till then, 

 it will be perfect." Probably his popularity was more 

 advanced by qualities of this kind in his writings than 

 by the great and absolute merit of his discoveries in 

 Algebra, whereupon chiefly his fame must rest. The 

 Book of the Great Art must, however, have assured to 

 Cardan among the most learned men of his day that 

 high respect and consideration which could be secured 

 from the more ignorant by works of less essential value. 



There is another element in Cardan's writings by which 

 they were characterised from the first, and by which they 

 were made interesting and amusing to their readers, 

 namely, the tendency to become autobiographical, and to 

 perform self-dissection. We should now very fairly turn 

 from a writer who had the bad taste to obtrude himself 

 in his own writings ; but three hundred years ago, when 

 modern literature was in its infancy, it had a right to prattle 

 the right age for talking properly was yet to come. Now 

 the events of Cardan's life, and more especially those of his 



1 The aphorisms cited in this chapter, with one exception, are all 

 from the fiftieth chapter of the book De Vita Propria. 



