Insatiable desire and divine enlargement

Use in the book

The contrast with bodily appetite sharpens the closing proof. Hunger, thirst and sleep are satisfied by comparatively small things. The desire for wealth or dominion can go on, and the desire for divine truth finds no final fullness in finite created knowledge. Ficino argues that only infinite God adequately fills the capacity flowing from God.

Acquiring finite objects does not simply reduce the appetite. The closer mind comes to the infinite source through preparation, the more ardently it desires. Fire returning to its sphere and a stone descending more swiftly as it approaches earth illustrate directed acceleration. They belong to Ficino's historical physics of natural places, not a modern quantitative account of gravitational acceleration.

The decisive qualification follows. Does mind possess its infinite power by itself? Ficino corrects that suggestion: more truly, it has it through a certain divine enlargement. God's absolute infinity inserts and continually preserves intellectual and vital infinity in minds and souls most immediately dependent upon it, and calls them from an infinite principle toward an infinite end. Communication is therefore not independence.

The final immortality argument moves from power and operation to duration. A power so enlarged has no assigned limit in knowing and willing; because life is prior in origin to intelligence, the power of living should have been granted even more fundamentally. “Granted” matters as much as “infinite.” The conclusion does not erase the causal distinction between the First Cause and created mind.

Places to read

1. VIII.16.3Finite human achievements and created knowledge fail to satisfy intellectual desire.
2. VIII.16.4Acceleration images lead to the explicit correction from self-owned power to divine enlargement and preserved dependence.

Translation in this edition

Talem quandam alicubi aut talem infinitatem is awkward in all three reported witnesses. The edition renders a distributive “some infinity of one kind or another”; this contribution does not silently emend it. The earlier sitis eius utrumque is also syntactically awkward in the supplied Latin; the English expands it as thirst for both human and divine things, an interpretation supported by the preceding contrast but not a smooth literal equivalent.

absolutus

absolutus. Printed forms: absoluta; absolutam; absolutaque; absolutus.

Released or unrestricted relative to the conditions specified in a passage. The abstract intellect's freedom from material conditions differs from God's absolute infinity, so the adjective alone does not establish divine identity. References: VIII.1.4, VIII.1.5, VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

amplificatio divina

amplificatio divina. Printed forms: amplificata; amplificatione divina.

Divine enlargement, the received expansion of mind's intellectual and vital power. Ficino corrects the suggestion that the power is independently self-owned; God's absolute infinity continuously supplies and maintains it. References: VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

ardor / ardere / ardenter

ardor / ardere / ardenter. Printed forms: ardentius; ardet; ardor.

Ardor is burning intensity or ardour; ardere means to burn; ardentius means more ardently. Mind’s desire is not satisfied by finite acquisitions and is said to burn more intensely as it approaches infinite God. The burning image is compared with the return of fire and a falling stone, while the mind’s capacity is ultimately described as divinely enlarged. These related words are a semantic family, not inflections of one noun. References: VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

capacitas / implere

capacitas / implere. Printed forms: capacitatem; impleat; impleretur; impletur.

Capacity and filling, expressing the relation between desire and its adequate object. Finite created knowledge fails to satisfy; infinite God is said to fill the capacity that flows from him. References: VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

dare / tribuere

dare / tribuere. Printed forms: dare; dent; detur; praestare; praestatur; tribuit; tribuitur.

Giving, granting or bestowing, either a causal gift or a premise conceded in argument. A granted hypothesis is different from the being or power bestowed by a source; divine communication and formal self-preservation require the causal sense to be specified. References: VIII.2.3, VIII.2.4, VIII.3.1, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.9, VIII.13.1, VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

Deus / divinus

Deus / divinus. Printed forms: dei; Dei; deo; Deo; deum; deus; divina; divinam; divino; divinorum.

God and the divine, especially the infinite source and object of intellectual return. Human intellectual range and formal self-preservation remain dependent on divine implantation and continuing conservation; knowledge of God is not identity with God. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.2.5, VIII.2.6, VIII.2.7, VIII.2.8, VIII.3.1, VIII.4.9, VIII.16.2, VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

divitiarum cumulus / imperii amplitudo

divitiarum cumulus / imperii amplitudo. Printed forms: amplitudo; cumulus; divitiarum; imperii.

An accumulation of riches and extent of rule, examples of unsatisfied human ambition. Ficino compares their unending appetite with desire for divine knowledge; the example is diagnostic within his argument, not praise of conquest. References: VIII.16.3. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

esurire / sitire

esurire / sitire. Printed forms: esurienti; esurit; sitis; sitit; sititque.

Hungering and thirsting, extended to the desire for truth or the infinite good. A bodily meal can be complete while intellectual desire continues, and finite attainment can even intensify it. References: VIII.2.5, VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.

ignis / lapis / descendere / deferre

ignis / lapis / descendere / deferre. Printed forms: defertur; descendit; ignis; lapis; propinquior.

Ignis is fire and lapis a stone; descendere means to descend and deferre to carry downward here. Their natural movements provide historical examples of return toward an end. Their accelerated return illustrates desire intensifying near its end; the passage does not offer modern quantitative mechanics. References: VIII.16.4. See Insatiable desire and divine enlargement.