Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Third argument. The more confined the sense, the keener it is.

1The image of a visible body must surely be gathered into something impartible, as happens even in the pupils themselves. Otherwise we could not see immense bodies and heaven itself through so tiny a pupil. If the eye needs no greater size in order to see more keenly—indeed, the smallest eyes see more sharply than the largest, as the eagle's eyes do in comparison with the ox's, so that magnitude seems not merely to fail to help sight but actually to hinder it—if, I say, the outward sight has no need of magnitude in order to perceive, what shall we say of the inward sight and the common sense? The more excellent and acute it is than each individual sense, the more self-sufficient it ought to be; and it will be more self-sufficient if it needs no bodily magnitude. Finally, the soul's own substance, which is the foundation of the senses, will be more self-sufficient than every sense if it has no need of quantity. Who would say that it requires quantitative dimensions, when bodily size neither helps nor harms the gifts of mind? If size necessarily helped them, the bee would not be more skillful than the sheep, the fox more cunning than the pig, the ape more ingenious than the ass, or the lion bolder than the ox. If size necessarily harmed them, the elephant would not be wiser than the horse, nor the dog more discerning than the lamb. And if bodily quantity has no force in relation to those powers of soul that deal with the quantity of bodies, much less should it be thought to have force in relation to the power of mind that transcends bodily quantity—namely reason, which we shall treat in its proper place.