ocessions of
phantoms which he was wont to see when he was a child. At the time when he
wrote, perhaps by reason of his busy life, he no longer saw them
whensoever he would, nor so perfectly expressed, nor for so long at a
time. These images constantly gave place one to another, and he would
behold groves, and animals, and orbs, and whatever he was fain to see.
This property he attributed to the force of his imaginative power, and his
clearness of vision. The third property was that he never failed to be
warned in dreams of things about to happen to him; and the fourth was that
premonitory signs of coming events would display themselves in the form of
spots on his nails. The signs of evil were black or livid, and appeared on
the middle finger; white spots on the same nail portending good fortune.
Honours were indicated on the thumb, riches on the fore-finger, matters
relating to his studies and of grave import on the third finger, and minor
affairs on the little finger.

In putting together the record of his life, Cardan eschewed the narrative
form and followed a method of his own. He collected the details of his
qualities, habits, and adventures in separate chapters; his birth and
lineage, his physical stature, his diet, his rule of life, his
imperfections, his poverty, the misfortunes of his sons, his masters and
pupils, his travels, his experiences of things beyond nature, his cures,
the persecutions of his foes, and divers other categories being grouped
together to make up the _De Vita Propria_, which, though it is the most
interesting book he has left behind him, is certainly the most clumsy and
chaotic from a literary point of view. The chapters for the most part
begin with his early years, and end with some detail as to his life in
Rome, each one being a categorical survey of a certain side of his life;
but remarks as to his personal peculiarities are scattered about from
beginning to end. He tells how he could always see the moon in broad
daylight;[249] of his passion for wandering about the city by night
carrying arms forbidden by the law; of his practice of self-torture,
beating his legs with a switch, twisting his fingers, pinching his flesh,
and biting his left arm; and of going about within doors with naked legs;
how at one time he was possessed with the desire, _heroica passio_, of
suicide; of his habit of filling his house with pets of all sorts--kids,
lambs, hares, rabbits, and storks. The chapter in whic