Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

3Certainly the whole does not always suffer equally. The distress in the intermediate members is not the same torment as that in the foot, but a painful awareness of that torment. Some distress and some sensation will therefore be present in every member. Consider what follows. The part of the soul in the foot will sense the foot's torment; the part in the lower leg will sense not the foot's distress but that of the lower leg—for it senses only where it is and only the affection that falls upon it. The part in the knee will likewise perceive only the affection present there, and the other parts will do the same. After them all, the judging power in the brain will attend only to the distress present to itself. If the soul is corporeal, its parts from foot to brain will be almost as countless as the body's. Consequently, when the foot strikes a stone, there will not be one sudden act of sensation. Many acts will arise by degrees, and almost countless pains will occur, just as there are countless perceptions. Only after all the other parts of the soul—which is an impious absurdity—will the part in which the principal sense resides begin to sense. Even then it will sense not the affection of the foot but only its own. It will never judge where the injury is or where aid must be given, nor will the bodily members be directed toward the foot by its command. To avoid these absurdities, we must acknowledge that the soul's entire power of judgment, together with the soul's whole substance, is present to every member. Whatever happens, the whole power perceives it at once without an intermediary; the whole soul suffers with itself and answers in concord, and by an immediate command it brings all the soul's powers and all the body's parts to the aid of the injured part. Thus whatever of the soul, and however much of it, is present in any member is absent from no other, because whatever is in any member moves every part toward whatever member requires it. Neither a body, nor a form diffused through body, nor any point of such a form is of this kind: none can be whole in many places at once or, in its several parts, immediately suffer and act in concert with itself. The soul is therefore utterly different from them.