" There have been many attempts during the past century to describe man's peculiar nature, but I am not sure that a better characterization has yet been made than that of the Renascence humanist, Pico della Mirandola, though couched in the now unfamiliar language of theology.

"God," observed Pico, "took man as a creature of indeterminate nature, and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him thus: 'Neither a fixed body nor a form that is peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam; to the end that according to thy longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form, and what functions thought shalt desire. The nature of all things is limited and constrained within the bounds and laws prescribed by us. Thou, constrained by no limits...shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature....As the maker and molder of thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer, thou shalt have the power to degenerate into lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.'" That choice occurs at every stage in man's development. "

― Lewis Mumford , Technics and Human Development (The Myth of the Machine, Vol 1)