that man is neither an animal nor a plant, but something between the two. A man is no more an animal than an animal is a plant. The animal has the _anima sensitiva_ which the plant lacks, and man transcends the animal through the gift of the _anima intellectiva_, which, as Aristotle testifies, differs from the _sensitiva_. Some maintain that man and the animals must be alike in nature and spirit, because it is possible for man to catch certain diseases from animals. But animals take certain properties from plants, and no one thinks of calling an animal a plant. Man's nature is threefold: the Divine, which neither deceives nor is deceived; the Human, which deceives, but is not deceived; the Brutish, which does not deceive, but is deceived. Dissertations on the various sciences, the senses, the soul and intellect, things marvellous, demons and angels, occupy the rest of the chapters of the _De Subtilitate_. At the end of the last book of _De Varietate_, Cardan gives a table showing the books of the two works arranged in parallel columns so as to exhibit the relation they bear to each other. A comparison of the treatment accorded to any particular branch of Natural Philosophy in the _De Subtilitate_ with that given in the _De Varietate_, will show that in the last-named work Cardan used his most discursive and anecdotic method. Mechanics are chiefly dealt with in the _De Subtilitate_, and all through this treatise he set himself to observe in a certain degree the laws of proportion, and kept more or less to the point with which he was dealing, a system of treatment which left him with a vast heap of materials on his hands, even after he had built up the heavy tome of the _De Subtilitate_. Perhaps when he began his work upon the fresh volume he found this _ingens acervus_ too intractable and heterogeneous to be susceptible of symmetrical arrangement, and was forced to let it remain in confusion. Few men would sit down with a light heart to frame a well-ordered treatise out of the _debris_ of a heap of note-books, and it would be unjust to censure Cardan's literary performance because he failed in this task. Probably no other man living in his day would have achieved a better result. It is certain that he expended a vast amount of labour in attempting to reduce his collected mass of facts even to the imperfect form it wears in the _De Varietate Rerum_.[120]