JUDGMENTS CARDAN'S DEMON. 247 



a common beggar. His favourite son was hung in Sicily. 

 The prince, by whom Cardan was deserted in his hour of 

 need, though otherwise, says Jerome, generous and hu- 

 mane, was distressed gravely both as a public man and 

 through his family. All others who took part in the 

 boy's death suffered, some more, some less. 



There is one particular in which the growth of Cardan's 

 superstition after his son's death came to be very distinctly 

 marked. Before that date he had not adopted the super- 

 stition of his father, or the hint then misapplied by many 

 of the learned from the ancients; he had not believed that 

 he was aided by a demon. Scaliger, as we have seen, had 

 such a faith ; and it arose in that age not unfrequently out 

 of an unspiritual reading of some of the later Greek phi- 

 losophers, and chiefly, I think, of Plotinus, for whose 

 works Cardan and many others had a very high respect. 

 Very few years before his great misfortune, in his book 

 on the Variety of Things, Jerome had been discussing 

 this subject, and had said, "I truly know of the presence 

 near me of no demon or genius; this I well know, that 

 for my good genius there was given me reason, great 

 patience in labour, courage, a contempt of money and 

 honours, all which I make the most of, and count such 

 gifts better and ampler than the demon of Socrates." 



After his son's death, in the dialogue entitled " Tetim," 

 we find his opinion in a transition state. He tends to 

 believe in a demon, though the belief he expresses is 



