240 JEROME CARDAN 



thereby as by eating hemlock." " I answered that I 

 knew well enough the difference between hemlock and 

 fennel, but the old man said, ' Take care, I know what 

 I am saying,' and went on murmuring something about 

 Galen. Whereupon I went home and found in Galen a 

 passage I had not hitherto noticed, and, having changed 

 my former views, I added many fresh excerpts to my 

 treatise." 



Although his faith may have been shaken in the 

 ability of the stars to govern his own fortunes, he 

 records a case in which he himself filled the post of 

 vates, and which came to a sudden and terrible issue. 

 Cardan was present at a supper-party, and in the course 

 of conversation let fall the remark, " I should like to 

 say something, were I not afraid that my words would 

 disturb the company," to which one of the guests 

 replied, " You mean that you would prophesy death to 

 one of us here present." Cardan replied, " Yes, within 

 the present year," and in the next sentence he tells 

 how on the first day of December in that same year 

 a certain young man, named Virgilius, who had been 

 present at the gathering aforesaid, died, and he sets 

 down this event as a fulfilment of his prophecy. 



But in the same chapter he lets the reader into the 

 secret of his system of prophecy, and displays it as 

 simply an affair of common-sense, one recommended by 

 Aristotle as the only trustworthy method of divining 

 future events. Cardan writes : " I used to inquire what 

 might be the exact nature of the business in hand, and 

 began by making myself acquainted with the character 

 of the locality, the ways of the people, and the quality 

 of the chief actors. I unfolded a vast number of 

 historical instances, leading events and secret transac- 

 tions as well, and then, when I had confirmed the facts 



