From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Influence
influence; influences; healing influences
Influence retains the older image of a power flowing from the heavens, especially from stars, into earthly life.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordInfluence retains the older image of a power flowing from the heavens, especially from stars, into earthly life.
- In TraherneThe stars minister influences that sustain living things, and the sun’s relations include strengthening them.
- In this editionThe historical stellar sense is explained by the 2026 notes to III.7 and III.55.
- A place to beginThe sun’s value includes its relation to the stars’ influences.
Meaning
Influence retains the older image of a power flowing from the heavens, especially from stars, into earthly life. It also names less visibly situated effects upon thought, education, and affection.
Use in the book
The stars minister influences that sustain living things, and the sun’s relations include strengthening them. Against this beneficent cosmic circulation stands the evil influence of an education that obscures the child’s light. Love then acquires healing influences of its own, extending the language of celestial operation to spiritual communication. The word binds natural, social, and inward worlds without making their operations identical. Its flowing and radiant associations explain why it sits so readily beside beams, nourishment, and refreshment.
Places to read
In this edition
The historical stellar sense is explained by the 2026 notes to III.7 and III.55. These passages report Traherne’s cosmological language, not established modern astrophysics.
Source note
Primary text: III.55, III.7, IV.80; historical gloss: 2026 edition notes to III.7 and III.55.
From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Celestial influence
influxus; influxibus; caelestis instinctus; mundanos instinctus
Influxus is an influx or communicated causal influence; instinctus is a directing impulse.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordInfluxus is an influx or communicated causal influence; instinctus is a directing impulse.
- In the Platonic TheologyAn instinctus in these passages is an impulse arriving from celestial souls, not simply an animal's innate behavior.
- In this editionThe translation’s “contracted” at IV.1.7 concerns specification from celestial/universal to earthly/particular through an earthly/universal middle.
- A place to readEarth-soul mediates universal celestial impulses into particular earthly life.
Meaning
Influxus is an influx or communicated causal influence; instinctus is a directing impulse. Contrahere can specify a universal influence to a local recipient rather than physically compress it.
Use in the book
An instinctus in these passages is an impulse arriving from celestial souls, not simply an animal's innate behavior. Such an influence is common or general until an intermediary makes it appropriate to a determinate lower effect. Ficino's earth-soul contracts celestial and universal impulses into earthly and particular lives; a fitting middle must be earthly and universal at once. “Contracting” here describes causal specification, rather than spatial compression. His account preserves both celestial influence and a genuinely present earthly source: the influx cannot independently supply a living substance because it is itself an accident. Later the whole elemental spheres receive influences from higher minds and spheres, and transmit them to particles and mixed bodies. The passage about parts of air and fire answering to stars makes this cosmology particularly explicit. This is the causal architecture of the Platonist exposition, rather than an account of physical radiation.
Further passage references. IV.1.3–IV.1.9234567; IV.1.91–IV.1.9323; apparatus
Places to read
- IV.1.7Earth-soul mediates universal celestial impulses into particular earthly life.
- IV.1.91–922Whole elements receive higher influxes before parts; selected regions of air and fire answer to stars.
- IV.1.96Ficino subjects the reported sphere-soul account to theological examination.
Translation in this edition
The translation’s “contracted” at IV.1.7 concerns specification from celestial/universal to earthly/particular through an earthly/universal middle. The claims about stellar reception and animated elements belong to the attributed cosmology and its chapter-end reservation.
influxus / instinctus
influxus / instinctus. Printed forms: influxibus; influxus; instinctus.
An incoming influence or impulse from a higher cause. The common celestial impulse is treated as an instrument requiring a proximate substantial source for local generation. References: IV.1.3, IV.1.4. See Celestial influence.