Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Volume II contents continued

Book VII · 231

VII.1 First argument. A body does not receive images suited to sensation. · 232

VII.2 Second argument. The five senses must be brought together at a single center. · 238

VII.3 Third argument. The more confined the sense, the keener it is. · 242

VII.4 Fourth argument. If the faculty of sensation is divisible, the sensible image within it will be divided. · 244

VII.5 Fifth argument. The soul as a whole senses everywhere. · 248

VII.6 Sixth argument. The soul is not necessarily acted upon in sensing. · 256

VII.7 Seventh argument. Arguments drawn specifically from the soul's natural and sensitive power show that the soul is not a divisible form, since a quality has a single operation. · 262

VII.8 Eighth argument. A bodily constitution acts through the power of its qualities. · 264

VII.9 Ninth argument. A bodily constitution is an accidental form. · 266

VII.10 Tenth argument. The harmony of a bodily constitution produces no effect upon the body. · 270

VII.11 Eleventh argument. There is harmony in every composite body. · 272

VII.12 Twelfth argument. Harmony is understood either as the composition of the parts itself or as some proportion within that composition. · 274

VII.13 Thirteenth argument. A harmony of the humors receives nothing apart from matter. · 276

VII.14 Fourteenth argument. The greater a thing's concord, the more fully it is a harmony. · 278

VII.15 Fifteenth argument. Harmony admits nothing discordant. · 280

Book VIII · 283

VIII.1 The soul ascends through four stages to spirit. First argument. · 284

VIII.2 The soul is nourished by truth. Second argument. · 294

VIII.3 Third argument. Because the soul's virtue is indivisible, it cannot be a quality of a body. · 306

VIII.4 Fourth argument. Neither an intelligible form nor an intelligible conception can be received by a body. · 316

VIII.5 Fifth argument. If the mind is a body, it understands by touching things and by traversing them. · 338

VIII.6 Sixth argument. Whatever the intellect receives, it receives with its whole self; it would not do so if it were bodily. · 342

VIII.7 Seventh argument. In receiving the forms of things, the intellect does not lose its own form; bodies do. · 344

VIII.8 Eighth argument. A form in the mind is universal; such a form cannot exist in a body. · 346

VIII.9 Ninth argument. Minds embrace one another; bodies do no such thing. · 348

VIII.10 Tenth argument. The mind acts through all bodies and beyond them. · 350

VIII.11 Eleventh argument. The mind advances through stillness, the body through motion. · 354

VIII.12 Twelfth argument. Things contrary in matter are not contrary in the mind. · 356

VIII.13 Thirteenth argument. The mind is not changed when it receives forms. · 358

VIII.14 Fourteenth argument. A body's activity tends toward a composite thing; the mind's activity, toward simple things. · 362

VIII.15 Fifteenth argument. The mind's action has its end in action; a body's action, in a body. · 364

VIII.16 Sixteenth argument. A bodily form does not possess infinite power; the mind does. · 370