Degree and mediation

Use in the book

Gradus can mean a rank, a level of being, or a degree of intensity. The principal sequence is body, quality, soul, angel, and God in ascent, reversed in Book III's deliberate descent. Soul is third in either direction. These are not equally spaced rungs: the distinction between divine unity and angelic multiplicity places God infinitely beyond the rest, while the interval from soul to matter is described as finite. The intervals express dependence and perfection rather than measured spatial distances.

The ranks are differentiated through their characteristic activities. Body is moved; quality moves body while being moved by another; soul moves itself; angel acts while stable through God; God acts and is stable through himself. Soul's middle position therefore means more than being third in a list. It shares stability with higher beings and changing activity with lower ones, connecting knowing and life-giving within one independently subsisting nature. It is not a mixture of halves or a compromise lacking its own constitution.

Ficino repeatedly reasons that extremes require a proportionate intermediate. Quality mediates between bare body and incorporeal form; soul connects wholly changing quality with angelic stability; angelic immobile multiplicity connects mobile soul with immobile divine unity. Seasons supply an ordinary example of transition through an intermediate. Book IV gives soul the image of a transparent medium between luminous and opaque things. Indivisible and above place like angelic mind, but mutable and related to time, soul transmits forms into body, where they are received divisibly. The image explains causal function rather than physical transparency.

Mediation also explains the earth-soul: it is earthly like its particular products and universal like the celestial impulses it receives and specifies. A self-moving soul similarly connects an unmoved angel to a body moved by another. Making God the world's indwelling life would subordinate the independent first principle to an animated body; making an angel that life would join unmixed intellectual stability immediately to temporal matter. Soul's combined stability and changing activity is the middle required by Ficino's argument, not another name for either extreme.

Further passage references. I.1.7; I.3.19, I.3.27, I.3.33; I.4.3; I.5.15; I.6.1–I.6.323; Book III argument; III.1.1–52345, 14–23; III.2.1–82345678, 20–24; IV.1.7; IV.1.29–IV.1.332345; IV.1.65–IV.1.6723

Places to read

1. I.1.7The five grades make rational soul the mediating bond.
2. I.4.3–523Seasonal transitions illustrate the intermediate between wholly mobile and wholly stable natures.
3. I.6.1–323Angel joins soul’s multiplicity to the immobility of the higher principle.
4. IV.1.7Earth-soul is earthly and universal, mediating between celestial universality and earthly particulars.

Translation in this edition

Soul’s “third” position is not a mixture of two half-natures. Its stable essence and changing action supply specified likenesses to both sides. The seasonal comparison is an analogy supporting mediation, not a measured scale of ontological distances.

aptus / convenire / congruere

aptus / convenire / congruere. Printed forms: aptius; congruit; conveniat.

Fit / agree or suit. A middle nature must agree with each extreme in a different respect; practical choice likewise selects what is judged fitting to an end. References: II.13.30, III.2.2. See Degree and mediation.

arx / tertius / medius

arx / tertius / medius. Printed forms: arce; mediam; tertiam.

Summit or citadel / third / middle. Soul is third counted either downward from God or upward from body; arx figuratively locates the two highest grades. References: III.2.1. See Degree and mediation.

attingo / tango

attingo / tango. Printed forms: attingit; tangit.

To touch or reach. The lowest degree of a higher nature is said to meet the highest of a lower; touch here marks a relation of grades, though illustrated by fire and air. References: I.5.14. See Degree and mediation.

cedere / excedere

cedere / excedere. Printed forms: cedit; excedit.

Yield to / surpass. The graded comparison specifies what each rank lacks or possesses relative to its neighbors, then denies that God’s superiority is merely finite. References: III.1.20. See Degree and mediation.

degenerare

degenerare. Printed forms: degenerare; degenerat.

Fall below a producer’s perfection. Angelic multiplicity belongs to its being an effect outside its cause; the verb is hierarchical rather than a moral accusation. References: III.1.17. See Shadows and dependence.

To decline in grade or fall away from a higher dignity. Forms lose life and efficacy through descent; bodily world cannot share divine complete immutability. References: IV.1.33, IV.2.23. See Degree and mediation.

discretus

discretus. Printed forms: discretae.

Distinguished or separated in degree. Created minds and souls differ by degrees of perfection; these differences belong to God’s causal scope. References: II.11.9. See Degree and mediation.

extremum

extremum. Printed forms: extrema.

Extreme or endpoint of an ordered range. God and body are the opposite grades; soul is needed to link them while retaining both relations. References: III.2.7, III.2.8. See Degree and mediation.

extremum sine medio

extremum sine medio. Printed forms: extremo; extremum; sine medio.

An extreme and transition without an intermediate. Averroes’s reported celestial form has dimension without matter to mediate material and divine forms; Ficino then advances his own inference beyond quantity. References: I.3.27. See Degree and mediation.

hiems / ver / aestas / autumnus

hiems / ver / aestas / autumnus. Printed forms: aestate; aestatem; autumnum; hieme; hiemem; ver.

Winter, spring, summer and autumn. The seasonal transitions illustrate Ficino’s principle that extremes are joined through intermediates; they are an analogy, not a demonstration of every metaphysical grade. References: I.4.3. See Degree and mediation.

intercedere

intercedere. Printed forms: intercedat; intercesserit.

To intervene as a necessary middle. Particular thought mediates a general plan and a step just as soul mediates immutable mind and mutable body in another argument. References: IV.1.32, IV.2.14. See Degree and mediation.

intercedere / deducere

intercedere / deducere. Printed forms: deducit; intercesserit.

To intervene as a mediator; to bring down into a lower mode. Soul receives indivisible forms and translates their operation into a mutable temporal nature before bodily division. References: IV.1.32. See Degree and mediation.

intervallum / spatium

intervallum / spatium. Printed forms: intervallum; spatium.

Interval or distance between levels. Ficino promises an argument that the soul-to-first-principle interval is infinite but the soul-to-matter interval finite; this unit does not yet deliver it. References: I.5.15. See Degree and mediation.

medium / interpono

medium / interpono. Printed forms: interponendus; Media; medium.

An intermediary; to place between. Ficino tests whether intervening bodies could carry celestial causation to a local fire; he judges them unsuitable within the particular argument. References: I.3.9. See Degree and mediation.

medium / particularis

medium / particularis. Printed forms: medias; medius; particulari; particularis; particulas.

Intermediate; particular; a small part. Intermediate causes differ from the universal source, while particles belong to the argument about corporeal divisibility. References: II.3.9, II.6.2, II.6.13, II.9.14. See Degree and mediation.

medium competens

medium competens. Printed forms: medium competens.

An intermediary suitable in the relevant respects. Earth's universal soul combines the earthly character of the effect with the universality of the higher impulse. References: IV.1.7. See Degree and mediation.

obtineo

obtineo. Printed forms: obtinens.

To hold or occupy a position. Rational soul holds the middle grade and actively connects the others; occupying the middle is not a merely spatial location. References: I.1.7. See Degree and mediation.

prae / post / infra / supra

prae / post / infra / supra. Printed forms: post; supra.

Before or above / after / below / above. In the hierarchy these prepositions primarily express rank and dependence, not a measured location in physical space. References: III.2.20. See Degree and mediation.

prior dignitate / tempore

prior dignitate / tempore. Printed forms: non tempore; prior est dignitate.

Prior in rank or worth / in time. Intellectual operation has superiority in dignity without being temporally earlier in human development. References: II.11.12. See Degree and mediation.

superior / inferior

superior / inferior. Printed forms: Inferiora; inferiorem; inferiores; inferiori; inferioribus; inferioris; superior; superiore; superioribus; superioris.

Higher and lower in causal rank, scope, or perfection. A higher cause is expected to impart a greater perfection, and the regress argument tests an endless hierarchy. References: II.1.3, II.1.6, II.3.9. See Degree and mediation.

superior / inferior / propinquus

superior / inferior / propinquus. Printed forms: propinqua; propinquior; propinquius.

Higher / lower / near. These specify causal and ranked relations; proximity in perfection is not automatically physical distance. References: III.1.14, III.1.26. See Degree and mediation.

tenuari / clarescere / hebescere

tenuari / clarescere / hebescere. Printed forms: clarescit; hebescit; tenuatur.

Grow fine / grow bright / become dull. The air analogy assigns different features through affinity with fire and water, illustrating mediation through shared qualities. References: III.2.8. See Degree and mediation.

The father withdrawing himself (Greek quotation)

Πατὴρ ἑαυτὸν ἥρπασεν

Ficino’s gloss says that the father withdrew himself and did not enclose his own fire even in the mind that follows him. Ficino then explains the point as the divine source’s incomparability with other things. The image marks transcendence within the comparison of causes; it should not be read as a geographical departure.

Place. III.1.21. See Degree and mediation.

Timaeus (authorities and cited works)

Timaeus. Invoked for divine will and goodness, intellectual ordering, the joining of mind to soul and soul to body, and soul's intermediate composition. II.11.26–272, II.11.38; II.13.3; III.2.22; IV.1.29. See Will; Indivisibility; Degree and mediation.