Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

10Of soul Zoroaster says, "καὶ ἴσχει κόσμου πολλὰ πληρώματα κόλπων"—that is, "It embraces the many plenitudes of the world's recesses." For if soul is intermediate between the highest and the lowest, it necessarily contains within itself the gifts and images of the higher things, and the powers and exemplars of the lower. Insofar as it shares in angelic mind, it becomes like an angel; in another respect it remains unlike. Thus the souls of the spheres possess all ideas at once within their minds, both as abiding possessions and in actuality. Within their lowest powers, which move bodies, they again possess the seeds of all things to be generated—in possession and disposition together, but not in actuality.

11Their middle part—reason—follows mind, because their supremely perfect bodies, which lack almost nothing, are adequately governed by the lowest part of soul alone. The middle part of a heavenly soul is mobile by its own nature; yet because it is free from bodily labor, it becomes stable when absorbed into mind. In us, by contrast, the neediness of our body sets the middle part in motion like the lowest, compelled by the exceedingly difficult and laborious task of governing the body. Even in the rational part of heavenly souls, however, a certain kind of motion appears, as Plotinus holds. For this part flows out from God, the unity of all, through its own unity—which is the head of its mind—and through its own mind—which is the head of reason. Through its mind and unity it also flows back into God, the unity of all. First it naturally desires God himself; second, it understands him; third, it loves him intellectually; and fourth, it attains him in a certain loving union. The Platonists call an action that passes through intermediate stages toward a definite end a motion. If it passes in time, they call it temporal motion; if in a single moment, eternal motion.