Diotimos Library · Renaissance Collection · Bilingual Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Proem and Books I–IV · Latin with an independent English translation
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Facing Pages · Branch 141 of 174
Book IV · Chapter 1 · §§ 5–8
Latin
p. 284Oportere autem elementis hanc vitam inesse intus fabricatricem, ea ratio persuadet, quod et ad substantiam generandam substantia est opus agente et ad perfectam actionem opus est perfecta agentis ipsius praesentia. Quando vero substantia corporalis corporali substantiae admovetur ad aliquam actionem, quod in agente ipso substantiale est remanet extra; quod penetrat intro est prorsus accidentale. Opus est autem substantia penetrante, ut substantia fiat inde fiatque perfecte. Substantia talis incorporea est et vivens.
Praeterea causae naturales, quia per naturam suam agunt, ideo ad certum effectum non aliter quam certa naturae suae ratione feruntur. Alioquin non magis ad hunc effectum vergerent quam ad illum. Quo fit, ut quatenus operi faciundo quadrant, eatenus operentur, atque contra.
Quapropter herbae animantesque quae sola putrefactione nasci videntur in terra, non minus a propriis causis oriri debent quam quae propagatione nascuntur. Sed ubinam sunt hae propriae causae? Procul dubio in terrena vita sunt terrenarum vitarum causae propriae. Nam et si eas caelestibus animis attribueris, oportebit tamen caelestes communesque instinctus ad terrenas particularesque animas per universalem terrae animam contrahi, ut a caelesti communique ad oppositum, id est terrenum particulareque, per medium competens, id est terrenum communeque, progrediaris.
Rursus, si causas illas quae proprie dictae sunt in multorum agentium concursu posueris, cogeris denique unam quandam proprii ordinis determinatam causam assignare, quae causas varias et hinc atque illinc confluentes ad effectum proprium ordinet atque determinet.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book IV
p. 285The following argument persuades us that this fashioning life must be present within the elements. To generate a substance there is need of a substance acting, and a perfect action requires the perfect presence of the agent itself. But when a bodily substance is brought near another bodily substance in order to act upon it, what is substantial in the agent remains outside, while what penetrates within is wholly accidental. A substance must penetrate if a substance is to be produced from it and produced perfectly. A substance of this kind is incorporeal and living.
Moreover, because natural causes act through their own nature, they are borne toward a definite effect only by a definite principle of that nature. Otherwise they would tend no more toward this effect than toward another. Hence they act only insofar as they are fitted to accomplishing the work—and, conversely, do not act insofar as they are not fitted to it.
Therefore plants and living creatures that seem to arise in the earth from putrefaction alone must proceed from causes of their own no less than those born through propagation. But where are these proper causes? Beyond doubt, the proper causes of earthly lives are in the life of the earth. Even if you ascribe them to celestial souls, the celestial and universal impulses must still be contracted into earthly and particular souls through the universal soul of the earth. In this way you advance from what is celestial and universal to its opposite—what is earthly and particular—through a fitting middle, namely what is at once earthly and universal.
Again, if you locate those so-called proper causes in the convergence of many agents, you will at last be compelled to assign a single determinate cause of the proper order, one that arranges and directs toward its proper effect the various causes flowing together from every side.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book IV · IV.1.5–IV.1.8
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology places the immortality of the soul at the center of an extended philosophical ascent through body, soul, angel, and God. This exact page-aligned Renaissance edition presents the authorial Proem and Books I–IV in a newly established Latin reading text with an independent English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions.
Historical Text and Translation
The Latin reading text is based on the Florence editio princeps printed by Antonio Miscomini on 7 November 1482 and principally collated against the Paris 1559 printing, with a 1641 Opera printing used only as a late control and OCR aid. Abbreviations are expanded, spelling and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and substantive departures among the witnesses are documented in the edition’s apparatus.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independently worded English translation in house. It aims for a dignified but readable modern register while preserving Ficino’s argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purpose clauses, and direct appeals; long periods are divided only where clarity requires it.
Rights
Ficino’s Latin source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.