comers. But the pontifical court was led to suspect the orthodoxy
of some of these propositions, and even the reading of the book
which contained them was forbidden by the Pope. It was not
until 1493 that Pico was finally absolved, by a brief of Alexander
the Sixth. Ten years before that date he had arrived at Florence;
an early instance of those who, after following the vain hope of
an impossible reconciliation from system to system, have at last
fallen back unsatisfied on the simplicities of their childhood's
belief.

The oration which Pico composed for the opening of this
philosophical tournament still [40] remains; its subject is the
dignity of human nature, the greatness of man. In common with
nearly all medieval speculation, much of Pico's writing has this
for its drift; and in common also with it, Pico's theory of that
dignity is founded on a misconception of the place in nature both
of the earth and of man. For Pico the earth is the centre of the
universe: and around it, as a fixed and motionless point, the sun
and moon and stars revolve, like diligent servants or ministers.
And in the midst of all is placed man, nodus et vinculum mundi,
the bond or copula of the world, and the "interpreter of nature":
that famous expression of Bacon's really belongs to Pico. Tritum
est in scholis, he says, esse hominem minorem mundum, in quo
mixtum ex elementis corpus et spiritus coelestis et plantarum
anima vegetalis et brutorum sensus et ratio et angelica mens et
Dei similitudo conspicitur:--"It is a commonplace of the schools
that man is a little world, in which we may discern a body
mingled of earthy elements, and ethereal breath, and the
vegetable life of plants, and the senses of the lower animals, and
reason, and the intelligence of angels, and a likeness to God."