This Picus Mirandula spake in an oration made before a most learned assembly in a famous university. Any man may perceive that he permitteth his fancy to wander a little wantonly after the manner of a poet but most deep and serious things are secretly hidden under his free and luxuriant language. The changeable power he ascribeth to man is not to be referred to his body, for as he wisely saith, neither doth the bark make a plant, but its stupid and nothing-perceiving nature neither doth the skin make a beast, but his brutish and sensual nature, neither doth separation from a body, make an Angel but his Spiritual intelligence. So neither doth his rind or coat or skin or body make a man to be this or that, but the interior stupidness, or sensuality, or angelical intelligence of his soul, make him accordingly a plant, a beast, or an Angel. The deformity or excellency is within.