THE KING OF DENMARK'S OFFER DECLINED. 15 



man or an atheist, still Cardan held with the whole force 

 of his superstition to its mystical pretensions. By the dark 

 side of his own fancy he clung firmly to the dark side of 

 his Church's faith. Church and philosopher so joined 

 were never to be parted. His opinion of the Protestant 

 cause he incidentally expressed in comments on the horo- 

 scope of Luther. The heresy so widely propagated would, 

 he said and the stars said fall to pieces of itself ; for 

 "it would rear up an infinite number of heads, so that, if 

 nothing else convicted it of falsehood, yet by that very 

 multitude of opinions it would be shown that, since truth 

 is one only, in plurality there must be error 1 ." 



Another reason, urged by him with equal emphasis, 

 against acceptance of the Danish offer, w r as his duty to his 

 children. His eldest son was of an age to require univer- 

 sity education ; Jerome was proud of him, and loved him 

 with a beautiful devotion. While he was teaching medi- 

 cine at Pavia, he could most readily secure for him all 

 requisite advantages. His other children, too_, were 

 recently left motherless. He would remain at home. 

 Neither for Pope nor heretic would he move out of his 

 appointed path. 



i ". . . . solvitur in seipso infinitaque reddit capita, ut si nihil 

 aliud errorem convincat, multitude ista opinionum ostendere tamen 

 possit, eum Veritas una tantum sit, plurimos necessario aberrare." 

 De Exemplis centum geniturarum. Op. Tom. v. p. 465. 



