Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

14There is this further consideration. If each kind of thing is reduced to some one thing within its kind that is in a certain way indivisible, and through whose simplicity the kind subsists—as motion and time are reduced to the instant, natural form to the least natural degree, geometrical dimensions to the point, and numbers to unity—why should the kind of substance not likewise be reduced to an indivisible substance? Just as all figures that partake of inequality are referred to the circular figure, the most equal of all, and the circle is referred to the indivisible center, the source of all equality, so divisible accidental forms are reduced to a divisible substantial form, and a form of this kind to one that is substantial and indivisible.

15And just as above quality, which is subject not only to decrease but also to remission of intensity, there is a substantial and corporeal form which, though it may decrease, is free from remission, so above this there must be a substantial form that is subject neither to remission nor to decrease. Thus the ascent that advances toward the better is completed in the best. Such will be an incorporeal substance, possessing before all else this property: by its nature it cannot be diminished.

16Such a substance must subsist somewhere in nature according to its own form. For indivisible and simple things necessarily precede divisible and composite things. Everything must first exist before it is extended and swollen. The latter things need the former, not conversely: from the former they take their origin, and in the former they reach their limit. Consequently, if divisible and composite things subsist in the nature of things according to their own form, much more must the kind of indivisible and simple things be found somewhere according to its own form.