proclamation of merit to which I had no right, worked no small profit to me, a man very little given to lying. For the people about the Archbishop, urged on by these and other considerations, persuaded him that he had no chance of regaining his health except by putting himself under my care, and that he should fly to me as his last hope."[260] It has already been noted that Cardan's claim to some past knowledge in the successful treatment of chest diseases had weight with the Archbishop and Cassanate, and the result of his visit surely proved that their confidence was not ill-placed; his boasting may have been a trifle excessive, but it was based on hope rather than achievement; and if proof can be adduced that it was not prompted by any greed of illegitimate fame or profit, it may justly be ranked as a weakness rather than as a serious offence. To these two instances of falsehood Naude adds a third, to wit, Cardan's claim to the guidance of a familiar spirit. He refuses to let this rank as a delusion; and, urged no doubt by righteous indignation against the ills springing from kindred superstitions, he writes down as a liar rather than a dupe the man who, after mastering the whole world of science, could profess such folly. Considering the catholicity of Cardan's achievements, and the eager spirit of inquiry he displayed in fields of learning remote from his own particular one, it is worthy of notice that he did not allow this discursive humour, which is not seldom a token of instability, to hold him back from pursuing the supreme aim of his life, that is, eminence in the art of Medicine. In his youth the threats and persuasions of his father could not induce him to take up Jurisprudence with an assured income and abandon Medicine. At Sacco, at Gallarate, and afterwards in Milan he was forced by the necessity of bread-winning to use his pen in all sorts of minor subjects that had no real fascination for him, but all his leisure was devoted to the acquisition of Medical knowledge. Prudence as well as inclination had a share in directing his energies into this channel, for a report, for which no doubt there was some warrant, was spread abroad that what skill he had lay entirely in the knowledge of Astrology; and, as this rumour operated greatly to his prejudice,[261] he resolved to perfect himself in Medicine and free his reputation from this aspersion. He had quarrelled violently with the physicians over the case of Count Borromeo's child which died, and with Borromeo himself, and, almost immediately after this, he published his book, _De Astrorum Judiciis_, a step which tended to identify him yet more closely with Astrology, and to raise a cry against him in Milan, which he declares to be the most scandal-mongering city in the Universe. But it is clear that in this instance scandal was not far wrong, and that Cardan himself was right in purging himself of the quasi science he ought never to have taken up.