JEROME CARDAN in 



than ridicule or serious criticism ; so he straightway 

 finds an explanation for this fact in the postulate 

 that lines in young people's hands speak as to the 

 future, and in old men's as to the past. Later he goes 

 on to affirm that lines in the hand cannot be treated as 

 mere wrinkles arising from the folding of the skin, 

 unless we are prepared to admit that wrinkled people 

 are more humorous than others, alluding no doubt to 

 the lines in the face caused by laughter, a proposition 

 which does not seem altogether convincing or conse- 

 quential, unless we also postulate that all humorous 

 men laugh at every joke. There is a line in the hand 

 which he calls the lima jecoraria, and the triangle 

 formed by this and the lima vitce and the lima cerebri, 

 rules the disposition of the subject, due consideration 

 being given to the acuteness or obtuseness of the angles 

 of this triangle. Cardan seems to have based his 

 treatise on one written by a certain Ruffus Ephesius, 

 and it is without doubt one of the dullest portions of his 

 work. 1 



It is almost certain that Cardan purposed to let the 

 De Varietate come forth from the press immediately 

 after the De Subtilitate, but before the MS. was ready, 

 it came to pass that he was called to make that memor- 

 able journey to Scotland in order to find a remedy 

 for the ailment which was troubling the Archbishop 

 of St. Andrews, a journey which has given to Britons 



1 He gives one example of his skill as a palmist in the De Vita 

 Propria: "Memini me dum essem adolescens, persuasum fuisse 

 cuidam Joanni Stephano Biffo, quod essem Chiromanticus, et 

 tamen nil minus : rogat ille, ut prasdicam ei aliquid de vita ; dixi 

 delusum esse a sociis, urget, veniam peto si quicquam gravius 

 praedixero : dixi periculum imminere brevi de suspendio, intra 

 hebdomadam capitur, admovetur tormentis : pertinaciter delictum 

 negat, nihilominus tandem post sex menses laqueo vitam finivit.' 

 ch. xlii. p. 156. 



