222 JEROME CARDAN 



This passage indeed was expunged in the edition of 1 560. 

 The Paralipomena were not in print and available, but 

 what can be read in them to-day doubtless reflects with 

 accuracy the attitude of Cardan's mind towards religious 

 matters in 1570. Though the Paralipomena were locked 

 in his desk, it is almost certain that the spirit with which 

 they were inspired would have infected Cardan's brain, 

 and prompted him to repeat in words the views on re- 

 ligion and a future state which he had already put on 

 paper, for he rarely let discretion interfere with the 

 enunciation of any opinion he favoured. In the Para- 

 lipomena are many passages written in the spirit of 

 universalism, and treating of the divine principle as 

 something which animates wise men alone, wise men 

 and philosophers of every age and every clime, Aris- 

 totle being the head and chief. Plato and Socrates and 

 the Seven Sages adorn this illustrious circle, which in- 

 cludes likewise the philosophers of Chaldea and Egypt. 

 Opinions like these were no longer the passport to 

 Papal favour or even toleration. The age of the 

 humanist Popes was past, and the Puritan movement, 

 stimulated into life by the active competition of the 

 Reformers, was beginning to show its strength, so that 

 a man who spoke in terms of respect or reverence con- 

 cerning Averroes or Plato would put himself in no light 

 peril. Thus for those of Cardan's enemies who were 

 minded to search and listen it must have been an easy 

 task to formulate against him a charge of heresy, 

 specious enough to carry conviction to such a burning 

 zealot as Pius V. This Pope, in his new regulations 

 for the maintenance of Church discipline, requisitioned 

 the services of physicians in the detection of laxity of 

 religious practices, or of unsoundness. " We forbid," he 

 says in one of his bulls, " every physician, who may be 



