Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Sixth argument: two bodies do not occupy the same place.

1Two bodies cannot entirely coincide with one another in the same place. For if they are to occupy precisely the same place, they must first be divided into parts and then join their respective parts to one another in turn. If these parts are indivisible, the bodies have now been resolved into indivisibles; and since they were composed of the very things into which they are dissolved, it follows that the magnitude of a body has grown out of certain indivisibles. But this cannot have occurred, because indivisibles, however many are gathered together, never make up a magnitude. If, on the other hand, those parts are divisible, each will itself be a body and will have a position of its own apart from the other. There will therefore not be two bodies in one place, but many little bodies in many little places.

2If, then, two bodies cannot coincide with one another in the same place, the soul—which pours itself everywhere into the living body and extends through every point of it—is not a body. That it is everywhere in the body is clear for the present from this: nothing lies more inward to essence than being. Hence the form through which substantial being is given both to the whole body and to its parts is inward to the whole and to the parts alike. And because a thing stands in the same relation to unity as it does to being, the soul, which of itself gives being, is of itself united to the whole body without any intermediary. That it gives substantial being is clear because, when it is removed, all the members change their species. Being flows from essence, and operation from power. Accordingly, the soul that bestows being and operation upon each member also communicates its own essence and power to each. It gives being and operation in the same manner in which it is united. Therefore, if it gives them to each member, it is united to each as well.