ghts,
kept closely behind the lattices of the humaner letters and of medical
philosophy, leaving to Cardan full liberty to occupy whatever ground of
argument he might find most advantageous in any other of the fields of
learning. Moreover, if any one shall give daily study to these celebrated
_Exercitations_, he will find therein nothing to show that Cardan is
branded by any mark of shame which may not be removed with the slightest
trouble, if the task be undertaken in a spirit of justice. For, in the
first place, who can maintain that Scaliger was justified in publishing
his _Exercitations_ three years after the issue of the second edition of
the _Libri de Subtilitate_, without ever having taken the trouble to read
this edition, and without exempting from censure the errors which Cardan
had diligently expunged from his book in the course of his latest
revision, lest he (Scaliger) should find that all the mighty labour
expended over his criticisms had been spent in vain? Besides, who does not
know that Cardan, in his _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, blunted the point
of all his assailant's weapons, swept away all his objections, and broke
in pieces all his accusations, in such wise that the very reason of their
existence ceased to be? Cardan, in sooth, was a true man, and held all
humanity as akin to him. There is small reason why we should marvel that
he erred now and again; it is a marvel much greater that he should only
have gone astray so seldom and in things of such trifling moment. Indeed I
will dare to affirm, and back my opinion with a pledge, that the errors
which Scaliger left behind him in these _Exercitations_ were more in
number than those which he so wantonly laid to Cardan's charge, having
sweated nine years over the task. And this he did not so much in the
interests of true erudition as with the desire of coming to blows with all
those whom he recognized as the chiefs of learning."

During the whole dispute Cardan kept his temper admirably. Scaliger was a
physician of repute; and it is not improbable that the spectacle of
Cardan's triumphal progress back to Milan from the North may have aroused
his jealousy and stimulated him to make his ill-judged attack. But even on
the ground of medical science he was no match for Cardan, while in
mathematics and philosophy he was immeasurably inferior. Cardan felt
probably that the attack was nothing more than the buzzing of a gadfly,
and that in any case it would make