Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

9Let us proceed once more in this way. The mind generally understands the very account of things as one and universal—for example, goodness itself, equally common to many good things. Such an account, insofar as it is one and universal, is also simple. The account of God or of an angel, whenever it is truly known, is likewise judged indivisible. These accounts are called intelligible essences. Our mind could never know them unless it possessed their forms within itself as images. For if the mind does anything in knowing, it acts only insofar as it exists in actuality, and it acts according to the actuality it possesses; it is brought into actuality through form. It never contemplates essences unless it is adorned with their forms. Although forms of this kind are sometimes called intelligible, they should more properly be called intellectual, while the essences are intelligible. This is the customary language of the ancient Platonists. Suppose a form of this kind—the image of such an essence—is scattered into parts in our mind. Its parts must then be related in one of three ways: none of them regards the essence itself; some regard it while others do not; or all regard it. If the first is granted, the whole form will in no way regard the essence, since no such relation exists in its parts. Just as the whole form consists of its parts, the relation belonging to the whole is gathered from the relations belonging to the parts. If it does not regard the essence at all, it will not be the essence’s image and will contribute nothing to understanding it. If the second is granted, any part which does not regard the essence has no place in the intellectual form, since it does not look toward the intelligible essence. If the third is granted, we shall immediately ask whether every part has the same regard or different parts have different regards. If the answer is that they have the same regard—and they can do so only if each refers to the whole essence—then none of them will be a part of the intellectual form; each will be the whole form. One will suffice for knowing. The others will be left over; indeed, if they are cut by the division of a body, they will be innumerable in actuality, and all will contribute to the act of knowing. But if the parts have different regards, this can happen only if the several parts of the form regard an equal number of parts of the essence, since the intellectual must be equal to the intelligible. It follows that the essence itself is divisible, although true reason had concluded that it is simple. Nor could the mind judge it simple unless it beheld it with a simple regard; with the multiple regards of diverse parts it would judge the essence multiple.