ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MAN
GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLAORATIONON THE DIGNITY OF MANTranslated by A. Robert CaponigriIntroduction by Russell KirkA GATEWAY EDITIONHENRY REGNERY COMPANYCHICAGO
Copyright 1956 by Henry RegneryCompany, Chicago, Illinois. Manufactured in the United States of America, 12-60, 4-64, 9-66.Third Printing
195P58dEc1966CONTENTSTranslator's NoteIntroductionOration on the Dignity of ManNotesviixi170
TRANSLATOR'S NOTEThis "most elegant oration" (oratio elegantissima) as it was called in the first edition of the collected works and as it hasbeen named ever since, of Giovanni Pico,Count of Mirandola (1463-1494) wascomposed as a prelusion to the disputationwhich Mirandola proposed to hold shortlyafter Epiphany, 1487. In this disputation,as he recounts in the course of the "Oration," Pico proposed to defend nine hundred propositions. The disputation did nottake place because it was suspended byPope Innocentius VIII, who also appointed a commission to examine thetheses. Some of them were condemned ascounter to the accepted teachings. In replyPico composed an Apology, in the courseof which he reproduced the second portionof the "Oratio" practically verbatim. Thisis, consequently, the first appearance ofthe "Oratio," or any part of it in publicprint. The whole of the "Oratio" was firstvii
TRANSLATOR'SNOTEpublished in the collection of Pico's worksedited and published by his relative, GianFrancesco Pico, in 1496. The qualifyingphrase "on the dignity of man" is a lateraddition, but has become practically identical with the oration, even though somewriters have protested that it has referenceonly to the first portion. Subsequent editions of the Opera Omnia in which the"Oratio" is included appeared at Venice in1498; at Strasburg in 1504; at Reggio in1506; at Paris 1505; again at Venice in1519 and 1557; and at Basel in 1530, 1537,1557 and 1572. Numerous editions of the"Oratio" alone have appeared since thattime. The present translation is based conjointly on one of the most recent and bestof these individual editions, that of BrunoCicognani (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Dignita delYuomo (De hominis dignitate), Testo, Traduzione e Note, Firenze,Le Monnier 3a ed., 1941), and the text ofOpera Omnia of 1504. A German translation appeared in a selection of Pico's writviii
TRANSLATOR'S NOTEings edited and translated by Arthur Liebert (Arthur Liebert: Giovanni Pico deltaMirandola: Ausgewaehlte Schriften, Jenaund Leipzig, 1905); in Italian a translationby Semprini (Giovanni Semprini: La filosofia di Pico delta Mirandola, Milano, 1936appendice), as well as that by Cicognanialready referred to. In English, a translationby Charles G. Wallis was published in themagazine View (fall, 1944 and December,1944). Several passages were translatedand published in the Journal of the Historyof Ideas in 1942. This translation is byElizabeth L. Forbes, who subsequentlypublished an excellent complete translation in the volume The Renaissance Philosophy of Man edited by Ernst Cassirer,Paul Oscar Kristeller and John HermanRandell, Chicago, the University of Chicago Press, 1948. While the present translator has consulted all of these, the translation here oflfered is a fresh one, baseddirectly on a reading of the Latin text asindicated above. Whatever merits or shortix
TRANSLATOR'S NOTEcomings it may have are consequently tobe judged on this basis. His aim has beenfirst, of course, adherence to the ideas; buthe has also tried to reproduce something ofthe stylistic flavor of Pico.
INTRODUCTION"The enduring value of Pico's work isdue, not to his Quixotic quest of an accordbetween Pagan, Hebrew, and Christiantraditions," John Addington Symondswrites, "but to the noble spirit of confidence and humane sympathy with allgreat movements of the mind, which penetrates it." Out of the bulk of the works ofCount Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whochallenged the doctors of the schools todispute with him on nine hundred gravequestions, the only production widely readnowadays is this brief discourse, "The Dignity of Man," delivered by him in i486, atRome, when he was only twenty-fouryears old. The oration, which was his glovedashed down before authority, lives as themost succinct expression of the mind of theRenaissance.Pico, a son of the princely house of Mirandola, one of the most brilliant of thegreat Renaissance families, studied at BoXI
INTRODUCTIONlogna, and wandered through the Italianand French universities for seven years,becoming immensely erudite, proficient inGreek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. Mystic, magician, and grand scholar,he combined in his character the Gothiccomplexity of the Middle Ages with theegoism and enlightenment of the Renaissance. He was the most romantic of all theHumanists. His immense design it was toeffect a synthesis and reconciliation of Hebrew, classical, and Christian traditions.No one did more than Pico to restore Platoto dignity in the schools; yet, as Symondsobserves, "uncontrolled by critical insight,and paralyzed by the prestige attaching toantiquity, the Florentine school [whichPico and Ficino dominated] producedlittle better than an unintelligent eclecticism." Among Pico's nine hundred questions were some propositions which hungclose upon the brink of heresy. He thoughtthat the secrets of the magicians couldprove the divinity of Christ, and that theCabala of the medieval Jews would sustainxii
INTRODUCTIONthe Christian mysteries. Thus, haranguing,reading, wandering, preaching, commencing a vast work against the enemies ofChristianity, he spent his brief life, dyingof a fever before he was thirty—though healready had abjured the world and theflesh, and planned to wander barefoot asan evangelist.Now this eccentric genius' "Dignity ofMan" is the manifesto of humanism. Manregenerate—"this, visibly," Egon Freidell ays, "is the primary meaning of the Renaissance: the rebirth of man in the likenessof God." The man of the Middle Ages washumble, conscious almost always of hisfallen and sinful nature, feeling himself amiserable foul creature watched by anangry God. Through Pride fell the angels.But Pico and his brother-humanists declared that man was only a little lowerthan the angels, a being capable of descending to unclean depths, indeed, butalso having it within his power to becomegodlike. How marvellous and splendid acreature is man! This is the theme of Pico'sxiii
INTRODUCTIONoration, elaborated with all the pomp andconfidence that characterized the risingHumanist teachers. "In this idea," continues Freidell, "there lay a colossal hybrisunknown to the Middle Ages, but also atremendous spiritual impulse such as onlymodern times can show."The very Cherubim and Seraphim mustendure the equality of man, if Man cultivates his intellectual faculty. It is thespirit, the spark of Godhood, which raisesMan above all the rest of creation andmakes him distinct in kind from all otherliving things. For all his glorification ofMan, however, Pico has no touch of themodern notion that "man makes himself,"and that an honest God's the noblest workof man. It is only because Man has beencreated in the image of God that Man isangelic. God, in his generosity, has said toMan, "We have made thee neither ofheaven or of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice andwith honor, as though the maker andmoulder of thyself, thou mayest fashionxiv
INTRODUCTIONthyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer.Thou shalt have the power to degenerateinto the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thysoul's judgment, to be reborn into thehigher forms, which are divine."This, then, is the essence of humanism,which spread out of Italy unto the wholeof Europe, reaching its culmination, perhaps, in Erasmus and Sir Thomas More.(More it was who translated the life ofPico by his nephew Giovanni Franciscointo English.) God had given Man greatpowers, and with those powers, free will.Man might rightfully take pride in hishigher nature, and turn his faculties to thepraise and improvement of noble humannature. A world of wonder and discoverylay before the Renaissance humanist. Yetall this dignity of human nature was thegift of God: the spiritual and rational powers neglected—and through free will Manis all too able to neglect them—Man sinksto the level of the brutes. The humanistdoes not seek to dethrone God: instead,xv
INTRODUCTIONthrough the moral disciplines of humanitas, he aspires to struggle upward towardthe Godhead.Thus a degree of humility chastened thepride of even the most arrogant humanistof the Renaissance. But the seed of hubris,overweening self-confidence, was sown;and a time would come when Man wouldtake himself for the be-all and end-all; andthen Nemesis would be felt once more, andThe end, however, is not yet. It hasremained for us of the twentieth century tolook back upon the course of this hubris,diffused over all the world; and to see theoratorical aspirations of the humaniststransformed into the technological aspirations of the modern sensual man; and toglimpse the beginning of the Catastrophe,perhaps, in a handful of dust over Hiroshima, or in the leaden domination of theSoviets, or in the pornography and hysteriaof the corner news-stand. Robert Jungk, inTomorrow Is Already Here, describes thestage of this progress at which we havearrived: "The stake is the throne of God.xvi
INTRODUCTIONTo occupy God's place, to repeat Hisdeeds, to recreate and organize a manmade cosmos according to man-made lawsof reason, foresight, and efficiency"—thisis the ambition of the twentieth-centuryenergumen of progress. And to gratify thisambition, we have moved very near to thedehumanization of Man. In our lust fordivine power, we have forgotten humandignity.By "the dignity of man," Pico della Mirandola meant the high nobility of disciplined reason and imagination, human nature as redeemed by Christ, the upliftingof the truly human person through an exercise of soul and mind. He did not mean atechnological or sensate triumph. "Thedignity of man" is a phrase on the lips ofall sorts of people nowadays, includingCommunist publicists; and by it, all sortsof people mean merely the gratification ofthe ego, the egalitarian claim that "oneman is as good as another, or maybe a littlebetter." Pico, however, knew that no beingcan dignify himself: dignity is a qualityxvii
INTRODUCTIONwith which one is invested; it must be conferred. For human dignity to exist, theremust be a Master who can raise Man abovethe brute creation. If that Master is denied,then dignity for Man is unattainable.For despite all the cant concerning thedignity of man in our time, the real tendency of recent intellectual currents hasbeen to sweep true human dignity down toa morass of mechanistic indignity. JosephWood Krutch, a generation ago, in hisModern Temper, described with a sombreresignation this process of degradation,Without God, Man cannot aspire to rankwith Cherubim and Seraphim. Freud convinced the crowd of intellectuals that Manwas nothing better than the slave of obscure and arrogant fleshly desires; AlfredKinsey, unintentionally reducing to absurdity this denial of human dignity, advised his fellow-creatures to emulate, if notthe ant, at least the snake—for Man, sothe modern dogma goes, lives only to lust.In this fashion phrases linger on in men'sxviii
INTRODUCTIONmouths long after the object they describehas been forgot.Pico della Mirandola, Platonist andChristian and sorcerer and rhetorician andmystic, designed his nine hundred questions as an irrefragable proof of Man'suniqueness. Emerson echoed him, five centuries after:There are two laws discreteNot reconciled,—Law for man, and law for thing;The last builds town and fleet,But it runs wild,And doth the man unking.By a discipline of the reason and the will,to make Man kingly, even angelic—thiswas Pico's hope, and it has been the hopeof all true humanists after him. Thing,nevertheless, has run wild in our time,building town and fleet, bomb and satellite; and the Man has been unkinged; andhuman dignity is at its lowest ebb, now,when Man's power over nature is at itssummit. A real man, in any age, is dignifiedand nobly human in proportion as he acxix
INTRODUCTIONknowledges the overlordship of Onegreater than Man. If Things are to bethrust out of the saddle once more, andMan mounted (in Pico's phrase) to "joinbattle as to the sound of a trumpet of war"on behalf of Man's higher nature, thensome of us must go barefoot through theworld, like Pico, preaching against thevegetative and sensual errors of the time.RUSSELL KIRKxx
ORATION ON THE DIGNITYOF MAN
Most esteemed Fathers, I have read inthe ancient writings of the Arabians thatAbdala the Saracen1 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 seenmore 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 basisassigned for these estimations, I was notfully persuaded by the diverse reasons advanced by a variety of persons for the preeminence of human nature; for example:that man is the intermediary between creatures, that he is the familiar of the godsabove him as he is lord of the beings beneath him; that, by the acuteness of hissenses, the inquiry of his reason and thelight of his intelligence, he is the interpreter of nature, set midway between the3
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANtimeless unchanging and the flux of time;the living union (as the Persians say), thevery marriage hymn of the world, and, byDavid's testimony3 but little lower than theangels. These reasons are all, without question, of great weight; nevertheless, they donot touch the principal reasons, those, thatis to say, which justify man's unique rightto such unbounded admiration. Why, Iasked, should we not admire the angelsthemselves and the beatific choirs more?At long last, however, I feel that 1 havecome to some understanding of why manis 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, whichdraws upon him the envy, not of the brutesalone, but of the astral beings and of thevery intelligences which dwell beyond theconfines of the world. A thing surpassingbelief and smiting the soul with wonder.Still, how could it be otherwise? For it ison this ground that man is, with completejustice, considered and called a great mir4
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANacle and a being worthy of all admiration.Hear then, oh Fathers, precisely whatthis condition of man is; and in the nameof your humanity, grant me your benignaudition as I pursue this theme.God the Father, the Mightest Architect,had already raised, according to the precepts of His hidden wisdom, this world wesee, the cosmic dwelling of divinity, a temple most august. He had already adornedthe supercelestial region with Intelligences, infused the heavenly globes withthe life of immortal souls and set the fermenting dung-heap of the inferior worldteeming with every form of animal life. Butwhen this work was done, the Divine Artificer still longed for some creature whichmight comprehend the meaning of so vastan achievement, which might be movedwith love at its beauty and smitten withawe at its grandeur. When, consequently,all else had been completed (as bothMoses and Timaeus testify),4 in the verylast place, He bethought Himself of bringing forth man. Truth was, however, that5
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANthere remained no archetype according towhich He might fashion a new offspring,nor in His treasure-houses the wherewithalto endow a new son with a fitting inheritance, nor any place, among the seats of theuniverse, where this new creature mightdispose himself to contemplate the world.All space was already filled; all things hadbeen distributed in the highest, the middleand the lowest orders. Still, it was not inthe nature of the power of the Father tofail in this last creative elan; nor was it inthe nature of that supreme Wisdom tohesitate through lack of counsel in so crucial a matter; nor, finally, in the nature ofHis beneficent love to compel the creaturedestined to praise the divine generosity inall other things to find it wanting in himself.At last, the Supreme Maker decreed thatthis creature, to whom He could give nothing wholly his own, should have a share inthe particular endowment of every othercreature. Taking man, therefore, this creature of indeterminate image, He set him in6
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANthe middle of the world and thus spoke tohim:"We have given you, Oh Adam; no visage proper to yourself, nor any endowment properly your own, in order thatwhatever place, whatever form, whatevergifts you may, with premeditation, select,these same you may have and possessthrough your own judgment and decision.The nature of all other creatures is definedand restricted within laws which We havelaid down; you, by contrast, impeded byno such restrictions, may, by your own freewill, to whose custody We have assignedyou, trace for yourself the lineaments ofyour own nature. I have placed you at thevery center of the world, so that from thatvantage point you may with greater easeglance round about you on all that theworld contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neithermortal nor immortal, in order that youmay, as the free and proud shaper of yourown being, fashion yourself in the formyou may prefer. It will be in your power to7
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANdescend to the lower, brutish forms of life;you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orderswhose life is divine."Oh unsurpassed generosity of God theFather, Oh wondrous and unsurpassablefelicity of man, to whom it is granted tohave what he chooses, to be what he willsto be! The brutes, from the moment of theirbirth, bring with them, as Lucilius says,5"from their mother's womb" all that theywill ever possess. The highest spiritualbeings were, from the very moment ofcreation, or soon thereafter, fixed in themode of being which would be theirsthrough measureless eternities. But uponman, at the moment of his creation, Godbestowed 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; ifsensual, he will become brutish; if rational,he will reveal himself a heavenly being; ifintellectual, he will be an angel and the8
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANson.of God. And if, dissatisfied with thelot of all creatures, he should recollect himself into the center of his own unity, hewill there, become one spirit with God, inthe solitary darkness of the Father, Who isset above all things, himself transcend allcreatures.Who then will not look with awe uponthis our chameleon, or who, at least, willlook with greater admiration on any otherbeing? This creature, man, whom Asclepius the Athenian, by reason of this verymutability, this nature capable of transforming itself, quite rightly said was symbolized in the mysteries by the figure ofProteus. This is the source of those metamorphoses, or transformations, so celebrated among the Hebrews and among thePythagoreans; for even the esoteric theology of the Hebrews at times transformsthe holy Enoch into that angel of divinitywhich is sometimes called "malakh-hashekhinah" 6 and at other times transformsother personages into divinities of othernames;7 while the Pythagoreans transform9
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANmen guilty of crimes into brutes or even, ifwe are to believe Empedocles, into plants;and Mohamet, imitating them, was knownfrequently to say that the man who desertsthe divine law becomes a brute. And hewas right; for it is not the bark that makesthe tree, but its insensitive and unresponsive nature; nor the hide which makes thebeast of burden, but its brute and sensualsoul; nor the orbicular form which makesthe heavens, but their harmonious order.Finally, it is not freedom from a body, butits spiritual intelligence, which makes theangel. If you see a man dedicated to hisstomach, crawling on the ground, you seea plant and not a man; or if you see a manbedazzled by the empty forms of the imagination, as by the wiles of Calypso, andthrough their alluring solicitations made aslave to his own senses, you see a brute andnot a man. If, however, you see a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all thingsaccording to the rule of reason, him shallyou hold in veneration, for he is a creatureof heaven and not of earth; if, finally, a10
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANpure contemplator, unmindful of the body,wholly withdrawn into the inner chambersof the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, butsome higher divinity, clothed with humanflesh.Who then will not look with wonderupon man, upon man who, not without reason, in the sacred Mosaic and Christianwritings, is designated sometimes by theterm "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 iswhy Evantes the Persian8 in his expositionof the Chaldean theology, writes that manhas no inborn and proper semblance, butmany which are extraneous and adventitious: whence the Chaldean saying:"Enosh hu shinnujim vekammah tebhaothhaf—"man is a living creature of varied,multiform and ever-changing nature." 9But what is the purpose of all this? Thatwe may understand—since we have been11
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANborn into this condition of being what wechoose to be—that we ought to be sureabove else that it may never be saidagainst us that, born to a high position, wefailed to appreciate it, but fell instead tothe estate of brutes and uncomprehendingbeasts of burden; and that the saying ofAsaph the Prophet,10 "You are all Godsand sons of the Most High," might ratherbe true; and finally that we may not,through abuse of the generosity of a mostindulgent Father, pervert the free optionwhich He has given us from a saving toa damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatientof mediocrity, we pant after the highestthings and (since, if we will, we can) bendall our efforts to their attainment. Let usdisdain the things of earth, hold as littleworth even the astral orders and, puttingbehind 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, theSeraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy12
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANthe first places; n but, unable to yield tothem, and impatient of any second place,let us emulate their dignity and glory. And,if we will it, we shall be inferior to themin nothing.How must we proceed and what mustwe do to realize this ambition? Let us observe what they do, what kind of life theylead. For if we lead this kind of life (andwe can) we shall attain their same estate.The Seraphim burns with the fire of charity; from the Cherubim flashes forth thesplendor of intelligence; the Throne standsfirm with the firmness of justice. If, consequently, in the pursuit of the active life wegovern inferior things by just criteria, weshall be established in the firm position ofthe Thrones. If, freeing ourselves fromactive care, we devote our time to contemplation, meditating upon the Creator inHis work, and the work in its Creator,we shall be resplendent with the light ofthe Cherubim. If we burn with love forthe Creator only, His consuming fire willquickly transform us into the flaming like13
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANness of the Seraphim. Above the Throne,that is, above the just judge, God sits,judge of the ages. Above the Cherub, thatis, the contemplative spirit, He spreadsHis wings, nourishing him, as it were, withan enveloping warmth. For the spirit ofthe Lord moves upon the waters, thosewaters which are above the heavens andwhich, according to Job, praise the Lordin pre-aurorial hymns.12 Whoever is aSeraph, that is a lover, is in God and Godis in him; even, it may be said, God andhe are one. Great is the power of theThrones which we attain by right judgment, highest of all the sublimity of theSeraphim which we attain by loving.But how can anyone judge or love whathe does not know? Moses loved the Godwhom he had seen and as judge of hispeople he administered what he hadpreviously seen in contemplation on themountain. Therefore the Cherub is theintermediary and by his light equally prepares us for the fire of the Seraphim andthe judgment of the Thrones. This is the14
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANbond which unites the highest minds, thePalladian order which presides over contemplative philosophy; this is then thebond which before all else we must emulate, embrace and comprehend, whencewe may be rapt to the heights of love ordescend, well instructed and prepared, tothe duties of the practical life. But certainly it is worth the effort, if we are toform our life on the model of the life ofthe Cherubim, xto have familiarly beforeour eyes both its nature and its quality aswell as the duties and the functions properto it. Since it is not granted to us, flesh aswe are and knowledgeable only of thethings of earth, to attain such knowledgeby our own efforts, let us have recourse tothe ancient Fathers. They can give us thefullest and most reliable testimony concerning these matters because they hadan almost domestic and connatural knowledge of them.Let us ask the Apostle Paul, that vesselof election, in what activity he saw thearmies of the Cherubim engaged when he15
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANwas rapt to the third heaven. He will answer, according to the interpretation ofDionysius, that he saw them first being purified, then illuminated, then finally madeperfect. We, therefore, imitating the lifeof the Cherubim here on earth, by refraining the impulses of our passions throughmoral science, by dissipating the darknessof reason by dialectic—thus washing away,so to speak, the filth of ignorance and vice—may likewise purify our souls, so thatthe passions may never run rampant, norreason, lacking restraint, range beyond itsnatural limits. Then may we suffuse ourpurified souls with the light of naturalphilosophy, bringing it to final perfectionby the knowledge of divine things.Lest we be satisfied to consult only thoseof our own faith and tradition, let us alsohave recourse to the patriarch, Jacob,whose likeness, carved on the throne ofglory, shines out before us.13 This wisest ofthe Fathers who though sleeping in thelower world, still has his eyes fixed on theworld above, will admonish us. He will ad16
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANmonish us, however, in a figure, for allthings appeared in figures to the men ofthose times: a ladder rises by many rungsfrom earth to the height of heaven and atits summit sits the Lord, while over itsrungs the contemplative angels move, alternately ascending and descending. If thisis what we, who wish to imitate the angeliclife, must do in our turn, who, I ask, woulddare set muddied feet or soiled hands tothe ladder of the Lord? It is forbidden, asthe mysteries teach, for the impure totouch what is pure. But what are thesehands, these feet, of which we speak? Thefeet, to be sure, of the soul: that is, itsmost despicable portion by which the soulis held fast to earth as a root to the ground;I mean to say, its alimentary and nutritivefaculty where lust ferments and voluptuous softness is fostered. And why may wenot call "the hand" that irascible power ofthe soul, which is the warrior of the appetitive faculty, fighting for it and foragingfor it in the dust and the sun, seizing forit all the things which, sleeping in the17
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANshade, it will devour? Let us bathe in moralphilosophy as in a living stream, thesehands, that is, the whole sensual part inwhich the lusts of the body have their seatand which, as the saying is, holds the soulby the scruff of the neck, lest we be flungback from that ladder as profane and polluted intruders. Even this, however, willnot be enough, if we wish to be the companions of the angels who traverse theladder of Jacob, unless we are first instructed and rendered able to advance onthat ladder duely, step by step, at no pointto stray from it and to complete the alternate ascensions and descents. When weshall have been so prepared by the art ofdiscourse or of reason, then, inspired bythe spirit of the Cherubim, exercising philosophy through all the rungs of the ladder—that is, of nature—we shall penetratebeing from its center to its surface andfrom its surface to its center. At one timewe shall descend, dismembering with titanic force the "unity" of the "many," likethe members of Osiris; at another time we18
ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MANshall ascend, recollecting those same members, by the power of Phoebus, into theiroriginal unity. Finally, in the bosom of theFather, who reigns above the ladder, weshall find perfection and peace in the felicity of theological knowledge.Let us also inquire of the just Job, whomade his covenant with the God of lifeeven before he entered into life, what,above all else, the supreme God desires ofthose tens of thousands of beings whichsurround Him. He will answer, without adoubt: peace, just as it is written in thepages of Job: He establishes peace in thehigh reaches of heaven.14 And since themiddle order interprets the admonitionsof the higher to the lower orders, the wordsof Job the theologian may well be interpreted for us by Empedocles the philosopher.15 Empedocles teaches us that thereis in our souls a dual nature; the one bearsus upward toward the heavenly region
Man above all the rest of creation and makes him distinct in kind from all other living things. For all his glorification of Man, however, Pico has no touch of the modern notion that "man makes himself," and that an honest God's the noblest work of man. It is only because Man has been created
May 02, 2018 · D. Program Evaluation ͟The organization has provided a description of the framework for how each program will be evaluated. The framework should include all the elements below: ͟The evaluation methods are cost-effective for the organization ͟Quantitative and qualitative data is being collected (at Basics tier, data collection must have begun)
Silat is a combative art of self-defense and survival rooted from Matay archipelago. It was traced at thé early of Langkasuka Kingdom (2nd century CE) till thé reign of Melaka (Malaysia) Sultanate era (13th century). Silat has now evolved to become part of social culture and tradition with thé appearance of a fine physical and spiritual .
On an exceptional basis, Member States may request UNESCO to provide thé candidates with access to thé platform so they can complète thé form by themselves. Thèse requests must be addressed to esd rize unesco. or by 15 A ril 2021 UNESCO will provide thé nomineewith accessto thé platform via their émail address.
̶The leading indicator of employee engagement is based on the quality of the relationship between employee and supervisor Empower your managers! ̶Help them understand the impact on the organization ̶Share important changes, plan options, tasks, and deadlines ̶Provide key messages and talking points ̶Prepare them to answer employee questions
Dr. Sunita Bharatwal** Dr. Pawan Garga*** Abstract Customer satisfaction is derived from thè functionalities and values, a product or Service can provide. The current study aims to segregate thè dimensions of ordine Service quality and gather insights on its impact on web shopping. The trends of purchases have
Chính Văn.- Còn đức Thế tôn thì tuệ giác cực kỳ trong sạch 8: hiện hành bất nhị 9, đạt đến vô tướng 10, đứng vào chỗ đứng của các đức Thế tôn 11, thể hiện tính bình đẳng của các Ngài, đến chỗ không còn chướng ngại 12, giáo pháp không thể khuynh đảo, tâm thức không bị cản trở, cái được
accomplish this goal, the Article explores the concept of human dignity, a fundamental right yet to be invoked in the context of substantive criminal law. The U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence invokes conflicting accounts of human dignity: liberty as dignity, on the one hand, and communitarian virtue as dignity, on the other.
6 ORATION ON VOLTAIRE phes of the 18th century, and, their meaning visible to mankind forever in his wonderful oration. It is a warning, a consecration, and a hope. It tells that progress is the only condition of human safety. It consecrates the noble Vol- taire whomade its conditions possible. It is a prophecy of hope and peace in evolution under the light of knowledge and love. It is the in-
