ed in the very loosest
sense, and was even applied to disbelievers in the apostolical
succession.[278] Dr. Parker writes, "Another cause which acted, together
with the natural disposition of Cardan, to produce that odd mixture of
folly and wisdom in him, was his habit of continual thinking by which the
bile was absorbed and burnt up; he suffered neither eating, pleasure, nor
pain to interrupt the course of his thoughts. He was well acquainted with
the writings of all the ancients--nor did he just skim over the heads and
contents of books as some do who ought not to be called learned men, but
skilful bookmongers. Every author that Cardan read (and he read nearly
all) he became intimately acquainted with, so that if any one disputing
with him, quoted the authority of the ancients, and made any the least
slip or mistake, he would instantly set them right." Dr. Parker is as
greatly amazed at the mass of work he produced, as at his powers of
accumulation, and maintains that Cardan believed he was endowed with a
faculty which he calls _repraesentatio_, through which he was able to
apprehend things without study, "by means of an interior light shining
within him. From which you may learn the fact that he had studied with
such enduring obstinacy that he began to persuade himself that the visions
which appeared before him in these fits and transports of the mind, were
the genuine inspirations of the Deity." This is evidently Dr. Parker's
explanation of the attendant demon, and he ends by declaring that Cardan
was rather fanatic than infidel.

Mention has been made of the list of his vices and imperfections which
Cardan wrote down with his own hand. Out of such a heap of self-accusation
it would have been an easy task for some meddlesome enemy to gather up a
plentiful selection of isolated facts which by artful combination might be
so arranged as to justify a formal charge of impiety. The most definite of
these charges were made by Martin del Rio,[279] who declares that Cardan
once wrote a book on the Mortality of the Soul which he was wont to
exhibit to his intimate friends. He did not think it prudent to print this
work, but wrote another, taking a more orthodox view, called _De
Immortalitate Animorum_. Another assailant, Theophile Raynaud, asserts
that certain passages in this book suggest, if they do not prove, that
Cardan did not set down his real opinions on the subject in hand. Raynaud
ends by forbidding the faithful to rea