JEROME CARDAN 159 



and give cause to the enemy to blaspheme. For 

 Reginald Scot, in the eighth chapter of Discoverie of 

 Witchcraft, alludes to the passage in question in the 

 following terms : " Cardanus writeth that the cause of 

 such credulitie consisteth in three points : to wit in the 

 imagination of the melancholike, in the constancie of 

 them that are corrupt therewith, and in the deceipt of 

 the Judges ; who being inquisitors themselves against 

 heretikes and witches, did both accuse and condemne 

 them, having for their labour the spoile of their goods. 

 So as these inquisitors added many fables hereunto, 

 least they should seeme to have doone injurie to the 

 poore wretches, in condemning and executing them for 

 none offense. But sithens (said he) the springing up of 

 Luther's sect, these priests have tended more diligentlie 

 upon the execution of them ; bicause more wealth is to 

 be caught from them ; insomuch as now they deale so 

 looselie with witches (through distrust of gaines) that all 

 is seene to be malice, follie, or avarice that hath beene 

 practised against them. And whosoever shall search 

 into this cause, or read the cheefe writers hereupon, 

 shall find his words true." 



In 1554 Cardan published also with Petrus of Basel 

 the Ptolemczi de astrorum judiciis with the Geniturarum 

 Exempla, bound in one volume, but he seems to have 

 written nothing but a book of fables for the young, con- 

 cerning which he subsequently remarks that, in his 

 opinion, grown men might read the same with advant- 

 age. It is a matter of regret that this work should have 

 disappeared, for it would have been interesting to note 

 how far Cardan's intellect, acute and many-sided as it 

 was, was capable of dealing with the literature of 

 allegory and imagination. He has set down one fact 

 concerning it, to wit that it contained " multa de futuris 



