298 JEROME CAEDAN. 



imputing any inconsistent or improper conduct to the 

 Church authorities. 



In the first place, of Cardan himself it may be said that 

 he had among learned men the greatest name in Italy, 

 and it was not natural that any rightly-disposed scholar 

 should be content to see him die in prison. If any of his 

 speculations had been rash, they had not originated out 

 of any spirit of antagonism to the Church, to which he 

 had always formally professed his desire to act as an 

 obedient child. He was not, therefore, an antagonist 

 whom it was proper to destroy, but simply an offender 

 whom it was merciful to pardon. In his conduct through- 

 out life, and especially since his son's death, it was easy to 

 find evidence of unsound mind in mitigation of his crimes 

 against Church discipline. 



In the next place, it should be said that Cardan's friends 

 were in the main pure-minded people, actuated by ge- 

 nerous and worthy motives. Cardinal Borromeo was a 

 spiritual man, a just and strict son of the Church, himself 

 a zealous lover of good discipline, but he knew Cardan 

 intimately, he honoured his intellect and understood 

 his eccentricities ; the physician, too, had saved his 

 mother's life. It was not unnatural or unchristian if I 

 may say so, not uncatholic in Borromeo, who worked 

 as a trusted brother with the new Pope, to suggest, that as 



