JEROME CARDAN 53 



hard things to say of our procedure.' And, as Galen 

 said, I must in truth have appeared crazy in my efforts 

 to contradict this multitude raging against me. For, as 

 it was absolutely certain that either I or they must be 

 in the wrong, how could I hope to win ? Who would 

 take my word against the word of this band of doctors 

 of approved standing, wealthy, for the most part full 

 of years, well instructed, richly clad and cultivated 

 in their bearing, well versed in speaking, supported 

 by crowds of friends and kinsfolk, raised by popular 

 approval to high position, and, what was more power- 

 ful than all else, skilled in every art of cunning and 

 deceit ? " 



Cardan had indeed prepared a bitter pill for his foes, 

 but the draught they compelled him to swallow was 

 hardly more palatable. The publication of the book 

 naturally increased the difficulties of his position, and 

 in this respect tended to make his final triumph all the 

 more noteworthy. 



It was in 1536 that Cardan made his first essay as an 

 author. 1 The next three years of his life at Milan were 

 remarkable as years of preparation and accumulation, 

 rather than as years of achievement. He had struck 

 his first blow as a reformer, and, as is often the lot of 

 reformers, his sword had broken in his hand, and there 

 now rested upon him the sense of failure as a superadded 

 torment. Yet now and again a gleam of consolation 

 would disperse the gloom, and advise him that the world 

 was beginning to recognize his existence, and in a way 

 his merits. In this same year he received an offer from 

 Pavia of the Professorship of Medicine, but this he re- 



1 Besides the De Malo Medendi L7su, he published in 1536 a 

 tract upon judicial astrology. This, in an enlarged form, was 

 reprinted by Petreius at Nuremburg in 1542. 



