Oration On The Dignity [ By: Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola ]

Della Mirandola spoke in front of hostile clerics of the dignity of the liberal arts and of the dignity and glory of angels. He said that a man should emulate the dignity and glory of the angels by "exercising philosophy." Pico della Mirandola said a man, if he cultivates what is rational, "will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God." Pico della Mirandola said a philosopher "is a creature of Heaven and not of earth

In the Oration, Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge within a Neoplatonic framework. He writes that after God had created all creatures, he conceived of the desire for another, sentient being who would appreciate all his works, but there was no longer any room in the chain of being; all the possible slots from angels to worms had been filled. So, God created man such that he had no specific slot in the chain. Instead, men were capable of learning from and imitating any existing creature. When man philosophizes, he ascends the chain of being towards the angels, and communion with God. When he fails to exercise his intellect, he vegetates. Pico did not fail to notice that this system made philosophers like himself among the most dignified human creatures.