JEROME CARDAN 15 



in fashioning iron breast-plates which would resist the 

 impact of red-hot missiles. In the De Sapientia, Cardan 

 records that when Galeazzo perfected his water-screw, 

 he lost his wits for joy. 



Fazio took no trouble to teach his son Latin, 1 though 

 the learned language would have been just as neces- 

 sary for the study of jurisprudence as for any other 

 liberal calling, and Jerome did not begin to study it 

 systematically till he was past nineteen years of age. 

 Through some whim or prejudice the old man refused 

 for some time to allow the boy to go to the University, 

 and when at last he gave his consent he still fought hard 

 to compel Jerome to qualify himself in jurisprudence ; 

 but here he found himself at issue with a will more 

 stubborn than his own. Cardan writes : " From my 

 earliest youth I let every action of mine be regulated in 

 view of the after course of my life, and I deemed that as 

 a career medicine would serve my purpose far better 

 than law, being more appropriate for the end I had in 

 view, of greater interest to the world at large, and likely 

 to last as long as time itself. At the same time I 

 regarded it as a study which embodied the nobler 

 principles, and rested upon the ground of reason (that 

 is upon the eternal laws of Nature) rather than upon the 

 sanction of human opinion. On this account I took up 

 medicine rather than jurisprudence, nay I almost entirely 

 cast aside, or even fled from the company of those 

 friends of mine who followed the law, rejecting at the 

 same time wealth and power and honour. My father, 

 when he heard that I had abandoned the study of law 

 to follow philosophy, wept in my presence, and grieved 

 amain that I would not settle down to the study of his 



1 " Nimis satis fuit defuisse tot, memoriam, linguam Latinam per 

 adolescentiam." De Vita Propria, ch. li. p. 218. 



