278 JEROME CARDAN 



idea then dominant; such idea would master him en- 

 tirely, or even haunt him like one of those unclean 

 spectres he describes with such gusto in the De Varietate. 

 What he may have uttered when these moods were upon 

 him must not be taken seriously ; these are the moments 

 to which the major part of his experiences of things 

 supra naturam may be referred. But there are numerous 

 instances in which he describes marvellous phenomena 

 with philosophic calm, and examines them in the true 

 spirit of scepticism. In his account of the trembling of 

 the bed on which he lay the night before he heard of 

 Gian Battista's marriage, he goes on to say that a few 

 nights after the first manifestation, he was once more 

 conscious of a strange movement ; and, having put his 

 hand to his breast, found that his heart was palpitat- 

 ing violently because he had been lying on his left side. 

 Then he remembered that a similar physical trouble had 

 accompanied the first trembling of the bed, and admits 

 that this manifestation may be referred to a natural 

 cause, i. e. the palpitation. He tells also how he found 

 amongst his father's papers a record of a cure of the 

 gout by a prayer offered to the Virgin at eight in the 

 morning on the first of April, and how he duly put up 

 the prayer and was cured of the gout, but he adds : 

 " Sed in hoc, auxiliis etiam artis usus sum." 1 Again with 

 regard to the episode of the ignition of his bed twice in 

 the same night, without visible cause, he says that this 

 portent may have come about by some supernatural 

 working ; but that, on the other hand, it may have been 

 the result of mere chance. He tells another story of an 

 experience which befell him when he was in Belgium. 2 

 He was aroused early in the morning by the noise made 

 outside his door by a dog catching fleas. Having got 

 1 De Vita Propriety ch. xxxvii. p. 118. 2 De Varietate, p. 589, 



