  For Cardano, human souls are individual principles of self-awareness. Selfhood is the principal argument in favour of their immortality. However, in defending the immortal character of human souls, Cardano also relies on proofs of a more pragmatic and theological nature. Hope in “the immortality of the soul” was implanted in human beings by God, therefore it cannot be considered as a deluded expectation. In common people God instilled this hope “through religions (leges),” in wise people, “through the hidden truths (arcana) of philosophy.” However, when God provided human beings with hope for immortal life, He decided to give them a feeble certainty, always in need of confirmation. The reason, according to Cardano, is that a firm belief in the immortality of the soul would have created too wide a gap between humans and animals, while leading man into arrogant delusions of grandeur. There has always been and – “as long as there is a world” – there always will be an alternation (vicissitudo) of confirmations and doubts concerning the immortality of the soul. It is a “vicissitude” of hopes and despair that is part of the providential regime of the world established by God (De utilitate ex adversis capienda, OO, II, 26a). Hope in the immortality of the soul is also a fundamental postulate in Cardano’s moral philosophy. As we will see in the next section, Cardano maintains that true inner tranquillity depends, among other things, on virtue, wisdom, and “hope in the gods.” Otherwise, what is passed off as tranquillity is in fact mere harshness and stiffness (duritia) (Theonoston, OO, II, 303b, 305b, 308a, 312a).