Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

2If the mind itself were something corporeal, therefore, it would be made altogether such as the bodies it understands. It would become water when it understood water, and fire when it understood fire; and because it understands heat and cold together, it would become contraries at once. In fact, however, it receives the forms of all things without being cast down from its own state; indeed, it advances by receiving them. Hence it is apparent that intellect is not corporeal. It is also apparent that it is not mortal. For it receives whatever it receives according to the mode in which it exists, and its being is purely intellectual. It therefore receives nothing except by understanding. Through reception of this kind it not only does not fail but actually advances. Thus it receives nothing from outside that can change and destroy it; and, what is more, it gains so much in receiving every form that it seems to gain even from evils. If it becomes more perfect in proportion as it knows more things, it is surely more perfect when it discerns the privations, defects, and evils of things than when it is ignorant of them. Things that are evil and harmful in themselves thus become good and wholesome in the mind. So far is this nature from being destroyed by evil and harmful things that it converts evils into goods, with the result that all things become good for it.