This uniting link...

This uniting link between the divine and the natural worlds is man. Man combines in himself all possible opposites which can all be reduced to one great polarity between the unconditional and the conditional, between the absolute and the eternal essence and the transitory phenomenon or appearance. Man is at once divinity and nothingness. There is no need to dwell on the assertion of this undoubted contrast in man, because it has of long represented the common theme of poets as well as of psychologists and moralists.

—Vladimir Solovyov, Lectures on Godmanhood (1876)