Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

3But someone may object to this argument as follows. Fire, which is hot in its own right, is always hot while it exists, yet it does not always exist; hence it is not hot always without qualification. In the same way, the soul's essence, because it is properly and truly a form subsisting in itself, exists in its own right; and because it exists in its own right, it exists always—that is, while it exists. Yet it does not always exist. Therefore it does not exist always. This objection is judged ridiculous for two reasons. First, it contradicts itself when it is joined together in this form: ‘That form exists in its own right; therefore it always exists, while, of course, it exists; yet it does not always exist.’ There are four assertions here. The second, ‘Therefore it always exists,’ contradicts the later conclusion, ‘Yet it does not always exist.’ Second, an objection of this kind abounds in superfluities when it adds, ‘while, of course, it exists.’ For ‘while it exists’ cannot mean anything other than the first assertion, ‘it always exists.’ Otherwise, in the same thing there would be a double ‘is’ and a double being, and what existed would not be one thing but two. It follows that the ‘is’ introduced when one adds ‘while it is’ is the very same ‘is’ already posited when one first said ‘it always is.’ Things that are the same must be treated in the same way. Hence, if the first ‘is’ is uttered without qualification, the second ‘is’ must likewise be uttered without qualification and without the words ‘while, of course, it is.’ The statement should therefore run: ‘It is; it always is; it is’—not with the addition ‘while, of course, it is.’ Or, if after the first ‘is’ you add ‘while, of course, it is,’ then to the second ‘is’ that follows after ‘while it is,’ add ‘while, of course, it is’ once again; and to this third ‘is,’ again add ‘while, of course, it is,’ and so on to infinity. Nowhere will you find the first root of being through which it belongs to the thing both to be and to be always. But what has no root of being is nothing at all. Come now, stop here. A separate form such as the soul exists in its own right. Therefore it exists always.