JEROME CARDAN 279 



out of bed to see to this, he heard the sound as of a key 

 being softly put into the lock. He told this fact to the 

 servants, who at once took up the tale, and persuaded 

 themselves that they had heard many noises of the same 

 kind, and others vastly more wonderful ; in short, the 

 whole house was swarming with apparitions. The next 

 night the noise was repeated, and a second observation 

 laid bare the real cause thereof. The scratching of the 

 dog had caused the bolt to fall into the socket, and this 

 produced the noise which had disquieted him. He 

 writes in conclusion : " Thus many events which seem 

 to defy all explanation have really come to pass by 

 accident, or in the course of nature. Out of such mani- 

 festations as these the unlettered, the superstitious, the 

 timorous, and the over-hasty make for themselves 

 miracles." 1 Again, after telling a strange story of a 

 boy who beheld the image of a thief in the neck of a 

 phial, and of some incantations of Josephus Niger, he 

 concludes : " Nevertheless I am of opinion that all these 

 things were fables, and that no one could have had any 

 real knowledge thereof, seeing that they were nothing 

 else than vain triflings." 2 



In a nature so complex and many-sided as Cardan's, 

 strange resemblances may be sought for and discovered, 

 and it certainly is an unexpected revelation to find a 

 mental attitude common to Cardan, a man tied and 

 bound by authority and the traditions of antiquity, and 

 such a daring assailant of the schools and of Aristotle as 

 Doctor Joseph Glanvil. The conclusions of Cardan as 

 to certain obscure phenomena recently cited show that, 

 in matters lying beyond sensual cognition, he kept an 

 open mind. In summing up the case of the woman said 

 to have been cured by the incantations of Josephus 

 1 De Varietate, p. 589. 2 Ibid,, p. 640. 



