Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

3The same conclusion is also established because quality is not perfect. What is first in any kind is the principle of the whole kind, and whatever is the principle of other things contains those that follow it. Nothing belonging to its kind is therefore absent from that which is first within the kind. Thus, if the sun is first among luminous things, it lacks no degree of light, whereas the luminous things below it, such as the stars and elements, do not receive the whole fullness of light. Since the first form embraces every perfection of forms and therefore cannot be imperfect, it is rightly concluded that a form called imperfect cannot be first.

4Add that quality inheres in matter in such a way that it is extended and divided along with matter, and so becomes, as I might put it, altogether material. If it is separated from matter, it perishes. Consequently it does not support itself but is supported by matter as its subject. What cannot support itself can much less subsist from itself. Since quality lies in another, it certainly depends upon another.

5For quality comes into being at some time, since it changes and perishes. Yet nothing that comes into being at some time arises from itself. What gives a beginning to something generated must precede that generated thing, and nothing precedes itself. Since quality therefore arises from another, and since nothing can arise except from something superior, quality cannot be the principle of nature.