Jerome Cardan by William George Waters (important books to read .txt) 📕

the brain and gave it a formal discipline which proved of the highest value when the real literary work of Modern Europe began. The futilities of the problems upon which the scholastic thinkers exercised themselves gave occasion for the satiric onslaught both of Rabelais and Erasmus. "Quaestio subtilissima, utrum Chimaera in vacuo bombinans possit comedere secundas intentiones; et fuit debatuta per decem hebdomadas in Consilio Constantiensi," and "Quid consecrasset Petrus, si consecrasset eo tempore, quo corpus Christi pendebet in cruce?" are samples which will be generally familiar, but the very absurdity of these exercitations serves to prove how strenuous must have been the temper of the times which preferred to exhaust itself over such banalities as are typified by the extracts above written, rather than remain inactive. The dogmas in learning were fixed as definitely as in religion, and the solution of every question was found and duly recorded. The Philosopher was allowed to strike out a new track, but if he valued his life or his ease, he would take care to arrive finally at the conclusion favoured by authority.

Cardan may with justice be classed both with men of science and men of letters. In spite of the limitations just referred to it is certain that as he surveyed the broadening horizon of the world of knowledge, he must have felt the student's spasm of agony when he first realized the infinity of research and the awful brevity of time. His reflections on old age give proof enough of this. If he missed the labour in the full harvest-field, the glimpse of the distant mountain tops, suffused for the first time by the new light, he missed likewise the wearing labour which fell upon the shoulders of those who were compelled by the new philosophy to use new methods in presenting to the world the results of their midnight research. Such work as Cardan undertook in the composition of his moral essays, and in the Commentary on Hippocrates put no heavy tax on the brain or the vital energies; the Commentary was of portentous length, but it was not much more than a paraphrase with his own experiences added thereto. Mathematics were his pastime, to judge by the ease and rapidity with which he solved the problems sent to him by Francesco Sambo of Ravenna and others.[296] He worked hard no doubt, but as a rule mere labour inflicts no heavier penalty than healthy fatigue. The destroyer of vital power and spring is hard work, combined with that unsleeping diligence which must be exercised when a man sets himself to undertake something more complex than the mere accumulation of data, when he is forced to keep his mental powers on the strain through long hours of selection and co-ordination, and to fix and concentrate his energies upon the task of compelling into symmetry the heap of materials lying under his hand. The _De Subtilitate_ and the _De Varietate_ are standing proofs that Cardan did not overstrain his powers by exertion of this kind.

Leaving out of the reckoning his mathematical treatises, the vogue enjoyed by Cardan's published works must have been a short one. They came to the birth only to be buried in the yawning graves which lie open in every library. At the time when Spon brought out his great edition in ten folio volumes in 1663, the mists of oblivion must have been gathering around the author's fame, and in a brief space his words ceased to have any weight in the teaching of that Art he had cultivated with so great zeal and affection. The mathematician who talked about "Cardan's rule" to his pupils was most likely ignorant both of his century and his birthplace. Had it not been for the references made by writers like Burton to his dabblings in occult learning, his claims to read the stars, and to the guidance of a peculiar spirit, his name would have been now unknown, save to a few algebraists; and his desire, expressed in one of the meditative passages of the _De Vita Propria_, would have been amply fulfilled: "Non tamen unquam concupivi gloriam aut honores: imo sprevi, cuperem notum esse quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim."[297]

FOOTNOTES:

[277] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxix. p. 76.

[278] Dugald Stewart, _Dissertations_, p. 378.

[279] The writer, a Jesuit, says in _Disquisitionum Magicarum_ (Louvanii, 1599), tom. i.:--"In Cardani de Subtilitate et de Varietate libris passim latet anguis in herba et indiget expurgatione Ecclesiasticae limae." Del Rio was a violent assailant of Cornelius Agrippa.

[280] "Quoniam intellectus intrinsecus est homini, belluis extrinsecus collucet: unus etiam satisfacere omnibus, quae in una specie sunt potest, hominibus plures sunt necessarii: tertia est quod hominis anima tanquam speculum est levigata, splendida, solida, clara: belluarum autem tenebrosa nec levis; atque ideo in nostra anima lux mentis 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.

[281] "Deum debere dici immensum: omnia quae partes habent diversas ordinatas animam habere et vitam."--p. 167.

[282] In the last edition of _De Libris Propriis_ he calls it "Christique nativitas admirabilis."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110.

[283] _Ptolemaei de Astrorum Judiciis_, p. 163.

[284] _Praefatio in Manilium_.

[285] A proof of his liberal tone of mind is found in his appreciation of the fine qualities of Edward VI. as a man, although he resented his encroachments as a king upon the Pope's rights.

[286] In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxiii. p. 106, he fixes into his prose an entire line of Horace, "Canidia afflasset pejor serpentibus Afris."

[287] "At Boccatii fabulae nunc majus virent quam antea: et Dantis Petrarchaeque ac Virgilii totque aliorum poemata sunt in maxima veneratione."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 125.

[288] _Ibid.,_ tom. i. p. 59.

[289] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii.-xiii. pp. 39, 44.

[290] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 505.

[291] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 72.

[292] "Eo tantum fine, quemadmodum alicubi fatetur, ut plura folia Typographis mitteret, quibuscum antea de illorum pretio pepigerat; atque hoc modo fami, non secus ac famae scriberet."--Naudaeus, _Judicium_.

[293] In _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 604) he writes:--"Quantum diligentiae, quantum industriae Cicero adjecit, quo conatu nixus est ut persuaderet senectutem esse tolerandam."

[294] _De Utilitate_, book ii. ch. 4.

[295] _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 605).

[296] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 113. On the same page he adds:--"Fui autem tam felix in cito absoluendo, quam infelicissimus in sero inchoando. Coepi enim illum anno aetatis meae quinquagesimo octavo, absolvi intra septem dies; pene prodigio similis."

[297] _De Vita Propria_, ch. ix. p. 30.

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Publication Date: 09-10-2009

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