Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

2We ask whether the sun first reduced that little portion of water to nothing and then generated air, or whether it preserved something of the water. If it were to reduce the water entirely to nothing, Nature's intention would be directed toward evil, though it is always directed toward good, since it is ruled by the supreme goodness of God. Being itself, the peculiar gift of the eternal God, would at times be withdrawn from things by causes that follow after God. But that cannot occur, since God always preserves by his own influx what he has once given, and no violence from any agent opposes that influx. For things below God do not possess unqualified being in every respect, but only the being of something—being in this way or that. They therefore have no power to remove being altogether, but only to alter the mode in which a thing exists. It would also follow that the sun generated that new air from nothing, if it had wholly consumed the prior portion of water into nothing. Yet natural agents cannot make anything from nothing; it is easier to make something from any existing thing than from nothing.

3Nor can natural agents generate just anything from just any seed: pears never come from wheat, figs from millet, or an eagle from human seed. Far less, then, can they generate anything from nothing. This argument shows that the sun could not turn the portion of water taken from the sea into nothing. Something of its former nature therefore remains in it. What is it? The water was cold and moist. Coldness has departed; moisture remains—according to the Platonists, it is common to air and water. If moisture remains, then some matter subject to that moisture also remains, for moisture is not a form separated from bodies. Thus the very same matter that formerly lay hidden beneath the coldness of water now lies concealed beneath the warmth of air.