Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

4When air becomes fire, however, it also loses moisture and receives dryness. Matter of this kind, which ascends into the form of fire when rarefaction has made it so exceedingly thin, descends again through condensation: it swells in air, is then condensed into water, and at last, growing heavy, becomes earth. You see one matter clothing itself in every form in turn, as it ascends by rarefaction and descends by condensation. It is one both because one matter suffices for one world and because, being formless, it has nothing within itself by which it could be distinguished into many.

5And if the whole universe terminates in a single receiver of form, it is fitting that it should likewise begin from a single giver of form and that the whole should be subject to it. But we have spoken of this elsewhere and shall do so again. Now this matter is never corrupted, because it is the foundation of the whole of bodily nature; if that foundation were destroyed, the entire machinery of the world would collapse. Nor is matter ever dissolved into parts, for by its own nature it is not constituted from parts. Parts, after all, arise through quantity.

6Matter, however, precedes quantity. It is the subject of quantity and quality alike, and the subject must always precede the thing that rests in it. Nor will matter be destroyed by the arrival of any contrary quality. It has no contrary quality, since by nature it receives them all equally; and no form that needs the support of matter is opposed to matter, for it would be opposing itself if it destroyed its own foundation. Nor does matter require some other seat, whose removal might cause it to fall into the depths. It is itself the primary support of all things. If any violence were to destroy it, that violence would either reduce it to nothing or transmute it into something else. The first is impossible. For whatever acts upon something is impelled to act by a natural desire to propagate its own perfection, so that, as far as its powers allow, it may generate something else like itself. This is manifest in the elements, plants, and animals.