End

Use in the book

The bronze statue attains its end when it has received the appropriate form. In the Hermetic address, the goal of piety directs a way of living and dying. Both uses concern attainment, but one explains a completed object and the other a life’s orientation.

Places to read

1. I.12.1b.2The completed statue has attained its end.
2. I.41.1.4The goal of piety is presented through a road to truth and the soul’s upward flight.

Translation in this edition

“End” suits the language of completion; “goal” often clarifies a directed undertaking. The local argument determines whether a terminal boundary, purpose, or fulfilled condition is intended.

Images and comparisons

The Hermetic speaker combines a road and an upward flight. These are images used by the source to orient the embodied soul toward truth, not a diagram of physical movement.

Use in the book

Finis can mean a goal, a completion, or a boundary; terminus can mark a limiting determination or completed state. Neither is restricted to the moment when an event stops. The opening terminus vivendi concerns life's endpoint, but most later arguments concern what an agent seeks or an activity is for. A moving thing seeks a completion it lacks and therefore depends on something more perfect; it does not rest in itself. Intellectual substances can be called the ends of corporeal things because lower things are ordered for their sake. Their role as ends also explains why angels need not be counted solely from the motions they govern.

The first principle and final end belong together: the same goodness that produces effects gives their appetite an ultimate orientation and perfects them through return. In the reported theory of mind, God is its scopus finisque, aim and end; fire's upward tendency supplies an analogy. The designation infinitus finis, attributed to Orpheus, combines ultimate goal with unlimited power rather than enclosing God within a finite boundary.

An end also links intellect and will. Intelligence apprehends the good to be attained and understands suitable routes; will approves the end and selects a route. Knowing a possible form does not alone explain its actual production. God's ultimate end cannot be a good outside God, which would make him dependent. He wills his own goodness, with creatures ordered toward its manifestation. Yet divine goodness needs no creatures. The necessity of willing this end consequently differs from the conditional or absent necessity of particular created means. Human beings likewise necessarily seek goodness as such while retaining judgment about particular goods and ways of pursuing them. In providential action, an end can already be present in intention even when the natural bodies directed toward it do not themselves know it.

In the celestial account, God moves heaven as goodness moves appetite: as its desired end. Immediate bodily movement still requires an inner living form that desires and acts. The distinction separates final direction from a proximate mover's operation. Neither heaven's moving body nor its moved soul is the ultimate principle and end. IV.2.18's 'end of all motions' is read by the supplied apparatus as an apposition to the infinite stable state; it does not simply announce a temporal halt in cosmic activity.

Further passage references. I.1.1; I.5.4–I.5.623; I.5.22, I.5.25–I.5.262; II.3.9–102; II.4.8; II.6.23; II.7.16; II.7.29; II.11.25–2723, 33–38; II.12.12–15234; II.13.3, 8–9, 25–30; IV.1.61–IV.1.622; IV.2.18; IV.2.27; apparatus

Places to read

1. I.1.1Terminus vivendi is the conditional endpoint of mortal life.
2. I.5.4–623A moving thing seeks its missing completion from a fuller source.
3. I.5.22, I.5.26Minds are ends of motions and corporeal things, exceeding their instrumental tasks.
4. II.13.30Free judgement selects means toward the good.

Translation in this edition

The endpoint of life in I.1.1 differs from a final cause. Angels as the “ends” of motions need not mark a temporal stopping time; their finality is one reason not to count them solely by motions. Preserve such object-specific uses.

finis

finis. Printed forms: finis.

End, goal, or boundary. A circuit’s end coincides with its beginning, so having an end need not mean ceasing to operate forever. References: III.2.26. See End and limit.

finis / scopus

finis / scopus. Printed forms: Finis; finis; finisque; Scopus.

End as completion, terminus, or goal; scopus explicitly marks an aim. The first source is also desire’s final end; mind’s goal is true good in the reported mental-presence theory. References: II.3.9, II.4.8, II.6.23. See End and limit.

gratia — purpose

gratia — purpose. Printed forms: boni ipsius gratia; sui gratia.

For the sake of, with a preceding genitive. The construction specifies the final good for which something is made; here gratia is not a separate gift of grace or a feeling of gratitude. References: II.11.27, II.13.3. See End and limit.

termino

termino. Printed forms: terminandum.

To determine or supply a completion. What does not rest in itself requires a more perfect source of its terminus; the passive construction identifies dependence. References: I.5.6. See End and limit.

terminus / infinitum

terminus / infinitum. Printed forms: infinito; terminum.

Limit / indefinite or unlimited. Ficino interprets the attributed Philebus contrast as actuality forming potency, not simply finite and infinite spatial magnitudes. References: III.1.11. See End and limit.

terminus vivendi

terminus vivendi. Printed forms: terminum vivendi.

The endpoint of living. Ficino’s conditional asks what would follow if human beings had precisely the same final endpoint as other creatures; the conditional must not be omitted. References: I.1.1. See End and limit.

Orpheus and the Orphics (authorities and cited works)

Orpheus and the Orphics. Supply divine names, hymnic descriptions, and mythological interpretations throughout the argument: infinite end, necessity, divine sight, cosmic order, and the paired powers of souls. These are Ficino's presented attributions. II.4.8; II.7.11; II.9.18–222345; II.10.7; II.13.21–24234; IV.1.94–952; IV.2.12. See End and limit; Apollo; Bacchus and the Muses; Proteus.