justify his great renown. Wherefore I am all the more inclined to turn to
that very acute criticism of Julius Caesar Scaliger, who exercised his
extraordinary genius in making a special examination of the treatise _De
Subtilitate Rerum_. He, having carefully noted everywhere the unequal
powers of this writer, decided that he was one who, in certain subjects,
knew more than a man could know, while in others he seemed more simple
than a child. In the science of Arithmetic he worked hard and made many
discoveries; but he was subject to strange and excessive aberration of
mind, and was guilty of the most impudent blasphemy, in that he was minded
to subject to the artificial laws of the stars the Ruler of the stars
Himself, for this thing he did in the horoscope of our Saviour which he
drew."

Another witness of his life in Rome is Francois d'Amboise, a young French
nobleman, who was engaged on his book _De Symbolis Heroicis_. He says that
he saw Cardan, who was living in a spacious house, on the walls of which,
in place of elegant paintings or vari-coloured tapestries, were written
the words, "_Tempus mea possessio_."

In his later writings there are farther indications that he was wont to
conjure up omens and portents chiefly at those times when he was in danger
and mental distress. In the case which is given below, the omen showed
itself in a season of trouble, but Cardan, in describing it later, treats
it as if he were a modern scientist. The distressing memories of the
imprisonment had faded, and writing in ease and security at Rome he begins
to rationalize. In the dialogue between himself and his father, written
shortly before his death, Fazio calls his son's attention to certain of
the omens and portents already noticed; and, after discussing these,
Jerome goes on to tell for the first time of another boding event which,
as he affirms, distressed him even more than the loss of his office and
the prohibition to publish his books. On the day of his incarceration, on
two different occasions, he met a cow being driven to the slaughter-house,
with much shouting and beating with sticks and barking of dogs. The
explanation of this event which he puts in Fazio's mouth is entirely
conceived in the spirit of rationalism. What was there to wonder at? There
was a butcher's shop in the street, and animals going to slaughter would
naturally be met there. Why should a man fear to meet a cow? If it had
been a bull there might have