JEROME CARDAN 285 



dering, implied that Cardan reckoned the intelligence 

 of men and beasts to be the same in essence, the variety 

 of operation being produced by the fact that the appre- 

 hensive faculty was inherent in the one, and only opera- 

 tive upon the other from without. But all through this 

 book it is very difficult to determine whether the pro- 

 positions advanced are Cardan's own, or those of the 

 Greek and Arabian writers he quotes so freely : and 

 this charge of Scaliger, which is the best supported of all, 

 goes very little way to convict him of impiety. In the 

 De Vita Propria there are several passages l which sug- 

 gest a belief akin to that of the Anima Mundi ; he 

 had without doubt made up his mind that this work 

 should not see the light till he was beyond the reach of 

 Pope or Council. The origin of this charge of impiety 

 may be referred with the best show of probability to 

 his attempt to cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ. 2 

 This, together with a diagram, is given in the Com- 

 mentaries on Ptolemy, and soon after it appeared it was 

 made the occasion of a fierce attack by Julius Caesar 

 Scaliger, who declared that such a scheme must be flat 

 blasphemy, inasmuch as the author proved that all the 

 actions of Christ necessarily followed the position of the 

 stars at the time of His nativity. If Scaliger had taken 

 the trouble to glance at the Commentary he would have 

 discovered that Cardan especially guarded himself 

 against any accusation of this sort, by setting down 



refulget multipliciter confracta, inde ipse Intellectus intelligit. 

 Ceteris autem potentiis, ut diximus, nullus limes prescriptus est : 

 at belluarum internis facultatibus tantum licet agnoscere, quantum 

 per exteriores sensus accesserit." De Imm. Anim., p. 283. 



1 " Deum debere dici immensum : omnia quse partes habent di- 

 versas ordinatas animam habere et vitam." p. 167. 



2 In the last edition of De Libris Propriis he calls it " Christique 

 nativitas admirabilis." Opera^ torn. i. p. no. 



