During the early days of modern era, in the Italian Renaissance, the possibility of crafting our destiny was seen as the very beauty and dignity of our humanness - but also as its inherent danger.

According to a story of that time, God created all beings in the universe and gave to each a particular quality and, therefore, a specific destiny. He gave cunning to the fox, fidelity to the dog, strength to the lion, and so on. When, at last, God came to the human being, He decided to leave him with an open destiny:

He welcomed him as an entity of indefinite nature, put him in the heart of universe, and spoke to him in this way: " I created you as a being neither mortal nor immortal, neither heavenly nor earthly, so that you, as a sovereign and free artificer, could mold and forge yourself in the shape your choose. You can sink to the level of inferior beings. You can, if you so will, regenerate yourself in the likeness of superior beings."


-from the book "What We May Be"