244 TH E INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



majestic figure of the Venetian Consul tore, in the person- 

 ality of Cardan; yet he far exceeded the former in inge- 

 nuity, and probably (statecraft and theology excepted) he 

 equalled the latter in the variety and profundity of his at- 

 tainments. Cardan's character was a bundle of contradic- 

 tions his life, a series of vicissitudes; and hence, as this 

 or that group of traits or events is selected as typical, so 

 he may be made out a martyr and a philosopher, or a char- 

 latan and a magician. He was the natural son of an aged 

 Milanese geometer, who made him a wretched drudge, 

 until, astonished by the learning the boy had managed to 

 acquire under difficulties, the disheartening quality of 

 which he of all the world knew best, he consented to enter 

 him as a medical student in Pavia. Thence Cardan went 

 to the University of Padua, the affairs of which were in 

 great disorder. For years there had been no rector, mainly 

 because no one wanted the place. Cardan offered himself 

 and was elected by one vote. But the honor was empty. 

 The mother, slaving at menial labor in Milan, worked to 

 defray the bare official charges. The symbols of his mock- 

 majesty, if he had them his robes of scarlet and purple 

 silk and his gold and jeweled badges, his fife-players and 

 his spearmen and all the stately, ceremonial appurtenances 

 of the office were paid for, if at all, from the proceeds of 

 the gaming table. He called his term of office his u Sar- 

 danapalan year;" the University sardonically termed it 

 the last of the ten years in which there was no rector. 



In time he became a doctor, and practised in a little 

 village, and wrote books on therapeutics and the plague. 

 His health was wretched his poverty, extreme. His 

 marriage helped him a little; but an inordinate passion for 

 gambling resulted in chronic destitution. The Milan 

 physicians would not permit him to practice because of his 

 origin; but a lectureship on geography, geometry and as- 

 tronomy yielded a pittance sufficient to ward off starvation. 

 So he lived, writing more treatises, mainly on the subjects 

 of his lectures, and developing a genius for fancies and 



