Picoselection

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 3

Oration on the Dignity of Man

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola


Most esteemed Fathers, I have read in the ancient writings of the Arabians that Abdala the
Saracen on being asked what, on this stage, so to say, of the world, seemed to him most evocative
of wonder, replied that there was nothing to be seen more marvelous than man. And that
celebrated exclamation of Hermes Trismegistus, ``What a great miracle is man, Asclepius''
confirms this opinion.

And still, as I reflected upon the basis assigned for these estimations, I was not fully persuaded
by the diverse reasons advanced for the pre-eminence of human nature; that man is the
intermediary between creatures, that he is the familiar of the gods above him as he is the lord of
the beings beneath him; that, by the acuteness of his senses, the inquiry of his reason and the
light of his intelligence, he is the interpreter of nature, set midway between the timeless
unchanging and the flux of time; the living union (as the Persians say), the very marriage hymn of
the world, and, by David's testimony but little lower than the angels. These reasons are all,
without question, of great weight; nevertheless, they do not touch the principal reasons, those,
that is to say, which justify man's unique right for such unbounded admiration. Why, I asked,
should we not admire the angels themselves and the beatific choirs more? At long last, however, I
feel that I have come to some understanding of why man is the most fortunate of living things
and, consequently, deserving of all admiration; of what may be the condition in the hierarchy of
beings assigned to him, which draws upon him the envy, not of the brutes alone, but of the astral
beings and of the very intelligences which dwell beyond the confines of the world. A thing
surpassing belief and smiting the soul with wonder. Still, how could it be otherwise? For it is on
this ground that man is, with complete justice, considered and called a great miracle and a being
worthy of all admiration.

Hear then, oh Fathers, precisely what this condition of man is; and in the name of your
humanity, grant me your benign audition as I pursue this theme.

God the Father, the Mightiest Architect, had already raised, according to the precepts of His
hidden wisdom, this world we see, the cosmic dwelling of divinity, a temple most august. He had
already adorned the supercelestial region with Intelligences, infused the heavenly globes with the
life of immortal souls and set the fermenting dung-heap of the inferior world teeming with every
form of animal life. But when this work was done, the Divine Artificer still longed for some
creature which might comprehend the meaning of so vast an achievement, which might be moved
with love at its beauty and smitten with awe at its grandeur. When, consequently, all else had
been completed (as both Moses and Timaeus testify), in the very last place, He bethought
Himself of bringing forth man. Truth was, however, that there remained no archetype according
to which He might fashion a new offspring, nor in His treasure-houses the wherewithal to endow
a new son with a fitting inheritance, nor any place, among the seats of the universe, where this
1
new creature might dispose himself to contemplate the world. All space was already filled; all
things had been distributed in the highest, the middle and the lowest orders. Still, it was not in the
nature of the power of the Father to fail in this last creative élan; nor was it in the nature of that
supreme Wisdom to hesitate through lack of counsel in so crucial a matter; nor, finally, in the
nature of His beneficent love to compel the creature destined to praise the divine generosity in all
other things to find it wanting in himself.

At last, the Supreme Maker decreed that this creature, to whom He could give nothing wholly his
own, should have a share in the particular endowment of every other creature. Taking man,
therefore, this creature of indeterminate image, He set him in the middle of the world and thus
spoke to him:

``We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own,
in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select,
these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of
all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by
contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We
have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at the
very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance round
about you on all that the world contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of
earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your
own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to
the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the
superior orders whose life is divine.''

Oh unsurpassed generosity of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of man,
to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be! The brutes, from the
moment of their birth, bring with them, as Lucilius says, ``from their mother's womb'' all that
they will ever possess. The highest spiritual beings were, from the very moment of creation, or
soon thereafter, fixed in the mode of being which would be theirs through measureless eternities.
But upon man, at the moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities,
the germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature
and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if
rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of
God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot of all creatures, he should recollect himself into the center of
his own unity, he will there become one spirit with God, in the solitary darkness of the Father,
Who is set above all things, himself transcend all creatures.

Who then will not look with awe upon this our chameleon, or who, at least, will look with greater
admiration on any other being? This creature, man, whom Asclepius the Athenian, by reason of
this very mutability, this nature capable of transforming itself, quite rightly said was symbolized
in the mysteries by the figure of Proteus. This is the source of those metamorphoses, or
2
transformations, so celebrated among the Hebrews and among the Pythagoreans; for even the
esoteric theology of the Hebrews at times transforms the holy Enoch into that angel of divinity
which is sometimes called malakh-ha-shekhinah and at other times transforms other personages
into divinities of other names; while the Pythagoreans transform men guilty of crimes into brutes
or even, if we are to believe Empedocles, into plants; and Mohammed, imitating them, was
known frequently to say that the man who deserts the divine law becomes a brute. And he was
right; for it is not the bark that makes the tree, but its insensitive and unresponsive nature; nor
the hide which makes the beast of burden, but its brute and sensual soul; nor the orbicular form
which makes the heavens, but their harmonious order. Finally, it is not freedom from a body, but
its spiritual intelligence, which makes the angel. If you see a man dedicated to his stomach,
crawling on the ground, you see a plant and not a man; or if you see a man bedazzled by the
empty forms of the imagination, as by the wiles of Calypso, and through their alluring
solicitations made a slave to his own senses, you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you see
a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule of reason, him shall you
hold in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and not of earth; if, finally, a pure contemplator,
unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is
neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in human
flesh.

Who then will not look with wonder upon man, upon man who, not without reason in the sacred
Mosaic and Christian writings, is designated sometimes by the term ``all flesh'' and sometimes by
the term ``every creature,'' because he molds, fashions and transforms himself into the likeness of
all flesh and assumes the characteristic power of every form of life? This is why Evantes the
Persian in his exposition of the Chaldean theology, writes that man has no inborn and proper
semblance, but many which are extraneous and adventitious: whence the Chaldean saying:
``Enosh hu shinnujim vekammah tebhaoth haj'' --- ``man is a living creature of varied, multiform
and ever-changing nature.''

But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand --- since we have been born into
this condition of being what we choose to be --- that we ought to be sure above all else that it
may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed to appreciate it, but fell
instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending beasts of burden; and that the saying of
Aspah the Prophet, ``You are all Gods and sons of the Most High,'' might rather be true; and
finally that we may not, through abuse of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the
free option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition
invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if
we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment. Let us disdain things of earth, hold as
little worth even the astral orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten to
that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead. There, as the sacred mysteries
tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to
them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it,
we shall be inferior to them in nothing.
3

You might also like