MARSILIO FICINO: »The [Man] is the greatest wonder in nature. All other things under God are always in themselves of one certain kind of being; this [human] essence is at once all of them. It possesses in itself images of the divine things upon which it depends. It also possesses the reasons and models of the inferior things which it in a sense brings forth. Since it is the mean of all things, it possesses the powers of all; hence it transforms itself into all things. And because it is itself the true bond of the universe, in passing into some things it does not forsake the others, but enters into individual things, and at the same time preserves all things. Therefore it can with justice be called the center of nature, the middle point of all that is, the chain of the world, the face of al, and the knot and bond of the universe.«
THEOLOGIA PLATONICA, 1469-74
(Translated by Josephine L. Borroughs)
