Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

2Moreover, if the soul is a body—whether an element or something like one, whether simple or composite—it will surely, so to speak, have one or another such condition: hot or cold, dry or moist, light or heavy, rare or dense, fluid or solid, white or black, and the like. If it is hot, it will only heat; if light, it will seek the heights. Whatever kind of body it may be, it will act according to its own nature and will never produce an effect opposed to that nature. What is cold does not heat. Every body, moreover, has a fixed and determinate nature and form, just as it has a bounded place, a definite time, and a finite power. The operation of every body is therefore determinate and does not extend to contrary effects. The soul, by contrast, appears to possess power over every kind of contrary. Both in the different bodies of animals and within the same body, it produces many effects opposed to one another. It brings to rest and sets in motion; contracts and extends; rarefies and condenses; sharpens and dulls; opens and closes; makes fluid and makes solid. It gives contrary odors, tastes, and colors, as well as opposed powers and shapes, to the humors and members. It moves light spirits downward to the feet and draws heavy humors upward to the head, contrary to the nature of bodies. It drives the body in every direction: upward against the weight of the heavy elements, downward against the loftiness of the light, sideways and in a circle against every capacity of body. Since, then, the soul produces almost every effect together with its contrary and commands opposing motions so as to move beyond the order of bodies, who could be so senseless as to admit that the soul is either a body, a quality of body, or anything belonging to such a quality?