Coming into being and passing away

Use in the book

Parmenides and Melissus are reported as denying both because they hold the whole to be unmoving. The account of matter defines it as what underlies these processes. In the discussion of souls, coming-to-be is opposed to being in a report about release after punishment.

Places to read

1. I.20.1aParmenides and Melissus deny coming into being and passing away.
2. I.11.1Matter underlies both processes and other changes.
3. I.49.65.16Souls are released from coming-to-be into being in the reported Platonic view.

Translation in this edition

“Generation” and “destruction” sometimes serve the same Greek pair. “Coming-to-be” keeps the process visible where it contrasts with being; it need not mean a single biological birth.

Use in the book

Generation and corruption are coming into being and passing away, not only reproduction and moral decay. They mark the instability of qualities: a quality's essence arises and perishes, its strength changes, and its operation occurs through time. A particular fire can produce another without being the first sufficient cause of the whole kind. Regular succession therefore leads Ficino toward a stable higher source. Nutrition and growth exemplify production more broadly: new parts must arise, and nonliving food becomes living form through an ordered power exceeding simple fiery heat.

Book IV extends this argument to the earth and water. Ficino reports organisms arising from putrefaction without visible bodily seeds, while also recognizing ordinary propagation. Apparent growth in stones belongs to the same inherited natural account. These claims motivate a search for living incorporeal sources rather than a denial of causation. 'Without bodily seed' means that spiritual life-giving seeds must produce directly or foster physical seeds left by organisms. The distinction is between visible propagation, unseen productive principles, and the requirement that determinate effects have determinate causes. The examples of spontaneous generation are part of Ficino's historical theory, not established modern biological observations.

Divine creation differs from ordinary generation because it depends on no preexisting matter, instrument, or time. A father generates from matter received from elsewhere, and an artisan shapes available material, whereas God produces material as well as form. This total causality also supports Ficino's account of God's love and preservation of his whole work.

A separate use concerns divine inward production. Reporting an interpretation associated with Plotinus, Ficino describes an infinitely fruitful act, an infinite product, and God in some sense begetting or establishing himself. This does not describe God beginning to exist at a date. Ficino immediately reserves judgment to God and affirms only what is worthy of him. Inward divine generation consequently cannot simply be equated with external creation. Similarly, the angel's receiving existence and illumination in an ordered 'first' and 'after' is explicitly qualified as priority in a certain sense, rather than straightforward temporal development.

Further passage references. I.3.5–I.3.11234567, I.3.22–I.3.2423; I.4.1; I.5.1; II.11.9, 24, 31–38; II.12.8–11234; II.13.2; III.1.12; IV.1.1–IV.1.22; IV.1.7; IV.1.14–IV.1.1923456; IV.1.78; apparatus

Places to read

1. I.3.5–11234567Particular producers and qualities depend on a stable higher source of generation.
2. I.3.22–232Alleged spontaneous generation, ignition and digestion distinguish life-giving power from mere heat.
3. II.12.8–11234A Plotinian account of inward divine production receives an explicit authorial reservation.
4. IV.1.1–22, IV.1.7Earthly generation and growth motivate earth-soul and determinate seminal causes.

Translation in this edition

Spontaneous-generation and growing-stone examples are historical natural lore. “Without bodily seed” does not mean without a cause in Ficino’s argument. II.12.8–11234’s self-generation language is attributed and explicitly reserved to divine judgement; it is not a dated beginning of God.

generatio / successio

generatio / successio. Printed forms: generationis; successione.

Generation and succession, capable of indefinite continuation in the account. Repeated generation is one potential infinity dependent on a source of active infinite power. References: II.4.8, II.10.3. See Generation and corruption.

lutum / fimus / rana / musca

lutum / fimus / rana / musca. Printed forms: fimi; fimo; luto; muscae; ranae.

Mud, dung, frogs and flies in alleged natural generation. Ficino’s examples of organisms arising from nonliving material support a living seminal source; they are historical natural lore, not current biology. References: I.3.22. See Generation and corruption.

Plotinus (authorities and cited works)

Plotinus. Invoked for matter and qualities as passive, God's self-directed intellection, universal mental presence, divine inward self-production, and celestial reason's motion. These passages have different attribution and qualification needs. I.3.19; I.6.12; II.6.14–24234567891011; II.12.9–1123; IV.2.11. See Matter; Intellect and intellection; Mind; Generation and corruption.

Use in the book

V.42345678910’s elemental changes establish a fundamental restriction: natural agents change a determinate mode of being, but do not remove being altogether. Water may cease to be water while matter persists under another form. That is corruption and generation, not annihilation followed by creation from nothing.

V.8234 describes generation as a path toward being and corruption as a path toward nonbeing. The relevant being is initially the thing’s proper determinate existence. Fire loses its form and ceases as fire; its matter persists. A material form likewise perishes when it loses the composite existence to which its maker assigned it. The terms do not all name the same fate.

V.112345678 tests whether an analogous resolution can be attributed to soul. The soul lacks material parts or a material seed into which it could return. If its essence survived the alleged loss of being, that essence would still be and, as soul, still live. Resolution into God cannot mean being absorbed into divine material potentiality, because God is pure act. The seal analogy instead figures strengthened conformity to an exemplar.

V.15.19 makes an important further concession: proving that the mind does not become nothing may still seem insufficient. Could it persist as something worse, such as body? The closing argument therefore protects determinate rational identity as well as bare nonannihilation. Its questions should not be omitted after announcing the immortality conclusion.

Places to read

1. V.4.2, V.4.8, V.4.9, V.4.10Natural change is distinguished from annihilation of matter.
2. V.8.1, V.8.2Corruption of a composite differs from the survival of matter and loss of dependent form.
3. V.11.1, V.11.3, V.11.5, V.11.6Hypothetical resolution of soul is tested and rejected.
4. V.15.19, V.15.20, V.15.27Nonannihilation alone does not settle preservation of rational identity.

Translation in this edition

The corrected adversative vero in V.8.1 replaces an erroneous non in the first printing. The book’s negative statements about natural production from nothing do not deny divine creation; V.12–13 argues for exactly that distinction.

abire / discedere

abire / discedere. Printed forms: abeunte; abit; Abit; discedit.

To depart, leave or withdraw. A form leaving matter may perish, but soul's departure from body is distinguished from loss of its own life. References: V.8.2, V.8.4, V.14.1, V.14.6. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

amittere

amittere. Printed forms: amissum; amittat; amittere; amittit.

To lose something previously possessed. Fire loses its form and proper being; the soul's imagined loss of being is tested against the persistence of essence. References: V.8.1, V.8.2, V.11.2, V.11.3. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

To lose what was previously possessed. A new wax-like impression threatens to erase the older one, making the example a test of memory. References: VII.1.1. See Memory, rigidity and fluidity.

commutare / transmutare

commutare / transmutare. Printed forms: commutabit; commutata; permutari; transmutabit.

To transform one condition or thing into another. The matter proof tests annihilation and transformation as alternatives, then excludes a surviving fragment as a model for prime matter's loss. References: V.4.6, V.4.9, V.4.10. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

commutatio

commutatio. Printed forms: commutatio; commutationem; commutationi.

Transformation or change, whose subject and endpoint determine whether it concerns qualities or substance. Elemental change preserves matter; the final book section tests the stronger possibility of mind becoming body. References: V.4.1, V.15.6, V.15.22, V.15.23. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

corrumpere / perdere / interire

corrumpere / perdere / interire. Printed forms: corrumpi; corrumpit; corrumpitur; interibit; interire; interit; perdere; perditur; perierit.

To corrupt, destroy or perish, usually loss of a determinate thing rather than total annihilation. The fate of fire differs from that of its matter; soul's alleged destruction is tested against its separate form. References: V.4.9, V.4.10, V.6.1, V.8.2, V.11.1, V.11.3. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

corruptio

corruptio. Printed forms: corruptio; corruptione; corruptionem.

Corruption, loss of a constituted thing or form. A composite can perish while its matter remains, so the term does not automatically mean reduction to absolute nothing. References: V.8.1, V.11.1, V.11.3. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

desinere / cessare

desinere / cessare. Printed forms: cessat; cesset; desinat; desineret; desinet; desinit; desinunt.

To cease an activity or existence, with the object determining the scope. Ceasing to be hot, ceasing to be fire and ceasing to be altogether are kept distinct in the objections and replies. References: V.1.1, V.1.4, V.8.2, V.9.4, V.12.12, V.12.13. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

fomes

fomes. Printed forms: fomite; fomitem.

Tinder or combustible ground, figuratively matter's latent productive resource. A bodily form is drawn from and can return to this material resource; soul is not generated from it. References: V.8.2, V.11.1, V.13.1. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

generatio

generatio. Printed forms: generatio; Generatio; generatione.

Generation or coming-to-be, usually by receiving form in a subject here. It proceeds toward a thing's proper being and differs from creation without preexisting matter. References: V.8.1, V.8.2, V.11.1. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

permanere / restare / superesse

permanere / restare / superesse. Printed forms: permanent; permanet; restat; superest; supersit.

To remain or survive, after a change or through dependence on a conserving source. Matter remains after a form is lost; a hypothetically surviving soul-essence would still have being and life. References: V.4.3, V.4.9, V.10.1, V.10.3, V.11.3. See Generation, corruption and annihilation.

Strato and the imagined Epicurean objection (authorities and interlocutors)

Strato and the imagined Epicurean objection. The objection that exclusion of death might allow annihilation is introduced as what Strato or an Epicurean might say. It is an argumentative possibility in the source, not a historically authenticated quotation from Strato. References: V.14.7. See Contraries, death and imperishability; Generation, corruption and annihilation.