Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Name: Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Author: Marsilio Ficino

Books V–VIII · Latin with an independent English translation

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Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume IIBook V · Chapter 15 · §§ 8–10

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Latin Page · Branch 58 of 191

Book V · Chapter 15 · §§ 8–10

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Latin

p. 110

Nam si carere poterit vita, non animus verus, sed animatum aut aliquod animi simulacrum est. Quod si absurdum est, multo minus hoc genus interitus timendum est animo, quod vitae certe non est timendum. Nam prorsus, si tunc moritur animus cum eum deserit vita, illa ipsa vita quae hunc deserit multo melius verus intelligitur animus, ut iam non sit animus quicquid a vita deseritur, sed ea ipsa vita quae deserit. Quicquid enim a vita desertum mortuum dicitur, id ab anima desertum intelligitur. Haec autem vita quae deserit ea quae moriuntur, quia ipse est animus et se ipsam non deserit, non moritur animus; nisi forte veram vitam, temperationem aliquam corporis aut aliquid eam sequens, ut Aristoxenus et Dicaearchus opinabantur, debemus credere.

Quibus profecto numquam hoc visum esset, si ea quae vere sunt et incommutabilia permanent eodem animo a corporum consuetudine alienato atque purgato videre valuissent. Quis enim bene se inspiciens non expertus est tanto se aliquid intellexisse sincerius quanto longius removere atque subducere intentionem mentis a corporis sensibus potuit? Quod si ad temperationem corporis animus pertineret, non utique id posset accidere. Non enim ea res quae naturam propriam non haberet neque per se subsisteret, sed in subiecto corpore tamquam corporalis forma inseparabiliter esset, ullo modo se ab eodem corpore ad intelligibilia percipienda conaretur avertere; et quantum id posset, tantum illa posset et intueri eaque visione melior et praestantior fieri.

Nullo quippe modo forma talis, vel ipsa etiam corporis temperatio quae certa commixtione efficitur earum quattuor naturarum quibus idem corpus consistit, avertere se ab eo potest in quo subiecto est inseparabiliter. Quin etiam, cum humorum consonantia accidens quoddam compositum sit, si anima vel consonantia esset vel ab ipsa dependens, nullo modo substantiarum rerumque simplicium rationes cognosceret, affectaret et caperet.

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II: Book V

p. 111

For if it could lack life, it would not be the true mind but an ensouled thing or some image of mind. And if that is absurd, still less should the mind fear this kind of destruction, which life itself plainly has no reason to fear. If the mind dies precisely when life deserts it, then the life that deserts it is far more properly understood to be the true mind. Whatever life deserts would no longer be mind; mind would instead be the very life that departs. Whatever is called dead because life has left it is understood to have been left by soul. But the life that leaves dying things is itself the mind; and because it does not leave itself, the mind does not die—unless we are to believe, as Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus supposed, that true life is some bodily temperament or something consequent upon it.

They would never have held that opinion if, with the same mind estranged and purified from familiarity with bodies, they had been able to see the things that truly are and remain unchangeable. Who, on looking carefully within, has not found that the farther he could withdraw and lift the mind’s attention away from the bodily senses, the more purely he understood something? If the mind belonged to the body’s temperament, this could never occur. A thing possessing no nature of its own and not subsisting through itself, but existing inseparably in the body as in a subject and as a bodily form, could not in any way strive to turn away from that same body in order to perceive intelligible things. Nor could its power to contemplate those things, and through that vision become better and more excellent, increase in the very measure of its withdrawal.

A form of this kind—or even the body’s temperament itself, produced by a determinate mixture of the four natures from which the body is constituted—cannot possibly turn away from the subject in which it exists inseparably. Moreover, since the harmony of the humors is a composite accident, if the soul were either that harmony or something dependent upon it, it could in no way know, desire, and grasp the intelligible principles of substances and simple things.

About This Reading Edition

Volume II continues Ficino’s inquiry into the immortality of the soul through Books V–VIII. Its arguments consider the rational soul’s self-motion, its relation to the body, sensation, and the powers of the mind. The Latin and independent English translation follow the supplied edition’s facing pages and matching comparison units.

Historical Text and Translation

The Latin reading text is independently established from the Florence 1482 editio princeps (M1482), collated against the Paris 1559 printing (G1559), with the Paris 1641 Opera used only as a late control. Abbreviations are expanded, spelling and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and consequential readings are recorded in the apparatus.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation in the voice established in Volume I, preserving Ficino’s argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purposes, and qualifications. Editorial notes and witness variants accompany their passages as numbered notes. The edition and source statement, contents, and reading guidance are also retained. The source locator register remains available in the downloadable edition.