Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

5Let no one object that when the body is neither burdened by the excessive weight of food nor weakened by hunger, but is moderately nourished, the soul is nourished in the same way and becomes stronger in that condition, whereas under the opposite conditions the reverse occurs. It is indeed true that the soul is at its strongest when a human being is in this condition. But this does not result from the soul being fed as the body is. Rather, the soul by nature governs the body, and when the body is ill and weighed down, the soul is so occupied with caring for and governing it that it cannot attend to the search for truth. When the body is at rest, the mind contemplates freely, and then it feeds most fully on its own proper nourishment. What food of the soul shall we name except that for which it always hungers and thirsts, whose acquisition gives it the highest joy, and whose reception causes it to grow and be filled? Every soul, at every age and continually, desires truth before all else. Artisans seek it in every art, and in every matter even children eagerly ask what is true of the thing itself. They investigate the truth in all their affairs not once, twice, or three times a day, as they take bodily food, but at every moment. In the desire to acquire truth we often forgo the body’s nourishment; we spare neither time, money, nor labor. We exhaust the body, and as it loses its sinews the soul becomes more sinewy. The soul itself desires this truth, not the body; truth does not increase the body, and the pursuit of it often harms the body. The soul desires truth for its own sake, not for the sake of the body. What benefit could it bring the body? If truth at times seems to benefit the body, this is not because of truth itself, but because some bodily advantage comes from knowing it. Indeed, even if no advantage follows, the soul still pursues truth eagerly. Though the body is filled with its own food, the soul still hungers and thirsts for truth. Having found it, the soul exults—not for a time, as with things sought for the body’s use, but it rejoices forever. It is illumined, matures, and grows magnificent, until in the greatness it has attained those things appear smallest to it which ordinarily seem greatest of all to a famished little soul. By this nourishment it also becomes unconquered, temperate, just, a governor and lord of men, higher than heaven, equal to angels, and like to God.