Motion

Use in the book

The account of Aristotle distinguishes increase and decrease, qualitative alteration, and change of place. It defines motion through the actuality of what is potentially movable. In a report on soul, continual motion and self-motion are presented as distinguishable descriptions.

Places to read

1. I.19.1.5The kinds of motion include quantity, quality, and place.
2. I.49.1a.1The soul is described as always moving or moving itself.
3. I.8.40eZeno’s account relates time to an interval of motion.

Translation in this edition

“Motion” is used for the philosophical category; “movement” often suits a particular occurrence. “Locomotion” marks change of place where the Greek argument distinguishes it.

Use in the book

II.22 starts from movement as evidence of life, then acknowledges that watches move too. The argument turns toward the more complex acts of living creatures and their ordered relations. Traherne is not unaware of the difference between mechanism and animation; he uses it to refine what counts as a disclosure of the giver.

The remembered dining room offers a personal counterpart. Splendid but empty furnishings become tedious; living company, music, and dancing transform the place. Later reflection identifies affection as the best motion, though invisible. The value of movement lies increasingly in relation and meaningful activity rather than in mere change of position.

Places to read

1. II.22Mechanical movement is distinguished from the revealing activities of living creatures.
2. III.22A populated dining room teaches the superior value of living company and affection.

In this edition

Motion need not mean locomotion. When affection is called a motion, the analogy concerns active inward life rather than physical displacement.

Use in the book

A28 distinguishes four bodily constituents from the principles by which they are moved. A37 credits the opposed sources of motion but questions their consistency. A38 concerns the larger rhythm in which the powers prevail and cause motion by turns, with possible rest between.

The local origin of cosmic rotation receives a more particular account at A30: an accumulation or weighting of fire gives the beginning of motion. A49 describes a rotation forceful enough to compress earth and expel water. These are reports of material mechanisms inside cosmogony, and they do not independently explain how every such mechanism is related to Love and Strife. The reflowed A30 Greek is also disordered, making a precise continuous narrative especially hazardous.

The denial of void raises a further question about motion through a filled world. A872’s pore discussion offers finer bodies occupying passages, while a contrary critical inference makes the passages empty. The volume records the problem without furnishing a modern mechanical resolution. Motion is therefore a connecting headword across cosmic agency, material rearrangement and the critical issue of available passage.

Places to read

1. A 28 (testimony)Simplicius, Physics 25,21, from Theophrastus. Explains the two powers through their role in moving the four elements.
2. A 30 (testimony)Ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis, in Eusebius P.E. I 8,10. Connects initial cosmic motion with an uneven gathering of fire.
3. A 49 (testimony)Aëtius II 6,3. Uses rotation as the physical cause of terrestrial compression.
4. A 87 (polemical)2Philoponus, On Coming-to-be and Passing-away. Exposes competing interpretations of passages as empty or occupied by finer matter.
5. A 38 (polemical)Aristotle, Physics Θ 1, 252a7. Uses κινεῖν for the powers causing motion in turns, within a cautiously framed reconstruction.

Translation in this edition

The beginning of one described cosmic motion need not be an absolute beginning of motion before an everlasting cycle. The reports do not settle that issue merely by using “beginning.”

Use in the book

Motion includes change of place, generation and corruption, increase and decrease of intensity, and successive activity such as thinking or self-formation. Stability may concern an underlying substance, an intellectual possession, an unwavering power, a regular pattern, or an ultimate source and end. The relevant respect must always be specified. Quality changes in essence, power, and operation; soul is stable in essence, mobile in operation, and partly stable and partly changeable in power. The claim in I.3.33 that soul is not subject to motion concerns the indivisible substance then under discussion, not a denial of its subsequent thoughts and acts.

Ficino argues that change itself requires stability: the changing subject must persist, and an enduring pattern of movement needs a stable moving power. Celestial revolutions are his principal cosmic example. Angelic immobility includes simultaneous intellectual comprehension, not inactivity; an unmoved mover can act. God is immovable because he lacks no better state, has no superior mover, is everywhere, and is perfectly simple. Angel receives fullness and stability from God rather than grounding them independently. To stand, in the relevant metaphysical sense, is to remain in the unity of one's nature.

At III.1.28, motion is an act running through successive moments of time, contrasted with an immediate act that has effects without undergoing temporal succession. Book IV extends the terminology in a qualified way: an action passing through intermediates toward an end is called temporal motion when it unfolds in time and eternal motion when accomplished in a moment. This later formulation must not disappear under a blanket assertion that every occurrence of motion necessarily takes elapsed time. The same care applies within celestial soul: its intellectual power possesses ideas simultaneously, while its lowest motive powers bring productive seeds into act successively.

Self-motion identifies soul as the first movable nature and the inward source of its own temporal operation. It is not a claim that soul is uncreated or independent of God. The Apelles example distinguishes external beginning and end from internal unfolding: the meadow presents itself and prompts the desire to paint, while the painter's soul supplies the gradual sequence of attention and representation. Higher realities similarly provide soul's origin and object, while its own nature supplies the temporal manner of response. Soul bridges wholly stable beings and bodies moved through others. It is a fountain because it possesses motion inwardly and a principle because it communicates movement; animated bodies display an image of that capacity.

Book IV's physical arguments maintain these distinctions. Heat produces heat, cold produces cold, and heaviness or lightness tends in a particular direction. A quality tied to bodily position does not independently reverse and return upon itself. Ficino contrasts this limited agency with heaven's returning, uniform motion and varied effects, inferring a nonextended living power. The conclusion depends on his account of qualities and celestial behavior, not a general proposition that every curved trajectory proves consciousness. Apparently unprompted bodily movement is also not sufficient evidence of independent self-motion: iron is drawn by a magnet, and displaced stones are explained through the soul of their sphere.

Flowing words have a related but distinct role. They can signify derivation from a source or the instability of what does not possess being through itself. If all causes merely derived from others, Ficino argues, no stable ground for unity, likeness, order, or restoration would remain; one flowing liquid cannot finally contain another equally flowing liquid. Yet procession from God is not dissolution or physical leakage. Things are enfolded in unity, unfolded in truth, poured forth through goodness, and returned through those same principles. Their continuing dependence, expressed elsewhere as the danger of flowing away into nothing without conservation, does not deny their actual existence.

Finally, circular bodily motion can imitate stability by remaining in place while revolving. Celestial soul participates in repose through mind even as lower powers remain active. The moved mover still depends on the stable first source and end with which Book IV closes. Motion need not signify disorder, and stability need not signify inertness; the hierarchy connects their different forms without making them identical.

I.5.8 explains its own paradox. A thing “moves for the sake of stability” because its moving power must remain vigorous; it “stands in motion” by preserving the same, an equal or a similar pattern. The explanation concerns causal continuity and regularity, not the claim that a spatially moving thing occupies one fixed point. The surrounding discussion distinguishes the matter persisting through substantial change from the substance persisting through changes of quantity, quality or place. An account that makes soul wholly outside every kind of motion on the strength of I.3.33 must be qualified by I.4–5, where stable essence coexists with changing operation.

Further passage references. I.3.33; I.4.1–I.4.52345; I.5.1–I.5.102345678910, I.5.18–I.5.2023; I.6.1–I.6.323; II.3.3; II.3.7–10234; II.5.2; II.7.7–923; II.7.23; II.12.15; III.1.5–8234, 13–22; III.2.2; III.1.16–32234567891011121314151617; III.2.1–323, 23–30; IV.1.53–IV.1.7023456789101112131415161718; IV.1.74–IV.1.77234; IV.2.11–IV.2.122; IV.2.27; IV.1.64–IV.1.652; IV.1.87; IV.2.6–IV.2.12234567; IV.2.18; IV.2.23–IV.2.272345.

I.4.5. Essence, power and operation receive different kinds of stability I.5.7–923. Ficino explicitly explains stability in motion and the subject preserved through change

Places to read

1. I.4.1Quality changes in essence, power, and temporally extended action
2. I.5.1Soul retains essence and natural power while thoughts and acquired powers vary
3. II.7.8Higher bodily change is clarified as change of being-mode
4. III.1.23Soul is first movable through itself between stable mind and externally moved body
5. IV.2.11Temporal and eternal motion differ by time versus momentary completion

Translation in this edition

The triad essentia, virtus, actio in I.4.1 must remain explicit because quality changes in all three respects. At IV.2.11 “eternal motion” means passage completed in a moment, not simply endless clock-time. The clarification “mode of being” in II.7.8 corrects the preceding compressed wording.

The supplied I.5.9 reads dum admittit statum and translates “when it admits a state of rest.” The supplied apparatus explains this as a state of rest: a thing without persistence loses motion rather than changes while resting. Preserve that supplied reading and explanation; do not silently substitute a conjecture about “losing” stability. The clear preceding argument is that total lack of persistence would preclude continued motion.

amitto

amitto. Printed forms: amittere.

To lose or let go of. The supplied I.5.9 says a thing lacking persistence, when admitting rest, loses motion; the apparatus explains this difficult sentence without changing its printed wording. References: I.5.9. See Motion and stability.

circumcurrere

circumcurrere. Printed forms: circumcurrit.

To run a circuit together with the body. Celestial life accompanies bodily motion in some manner, distinguishing it from wholly unmoved angel. References: IV.1.64. See Motion and stability.

ferre

ferre. Printed forms: ferri; fertur; feruntur.

To carry, be borne, or tend toward. Natural causes tend toward specific effects; heaven is borne by will; the lower soul-power strives toward particular seeds in act. References: IV.1.6, IV.2.2, IV.2.12. See Motion and stability.

fluctuo / labens

fluctuo / labens. Printed forms: fluctuabit; labentes; labentium.

To fluctuate and to pass away or slip onward. Matter’s changing forms and the reported Plotinian shadow-affections contrast with the stable essence that a first productive source would require. References: I.3.6, I.3.19. See Motion and stability.

fluere

fluere. Printed forms: effluit; Fluet.

Flow. Soul’s operation flows through different acts while its substance persists; the metaphor marks temporal succession. References: III.1.16, III.1.23. See Motion and stability.

immutabilis / immobilis

immutabilis / immobilis. Printed forms: immobile; immobilis; immutabilis.

Unchangeable / unmoving or stable. Divine immobility is underived, angelic immobility received; the reported empyrean classification is a further attributed application. References: III.1.6, III.1.7, III.2.4. See Motion and stability.

impellere / inferre

impellere / inferre. Printed forms: impellit; infert.

To impel or introduce into something. Imagination urges a mistaken identification with time, while nature imparts motion to its products. References: II.5.3, II.7.17. See Motion and stability.

labi

labi. Printed forms: labatur.

Slip or fall away. The operation most fitting to God must not cause departure from stability or simplicity. References: II.11.14. See Motion and stability.

manere / exsuperare

manere / exsuperare. Printed forms: exsuperet; manet.

To remain, and to prevail, respectively. Pure things remain themselves; the alternating victory of rival divine efforts would imply mutable gods. References: II.1.1, II.2.14. See Motion and stability.

motor / motum

motor / motum. Printed forms: moto; motor; Motor; motorem.

A mover and what it moves. A soul moves with the body it transports, whereas angels are proposed as movers not moved with it; the distinction supports the hierarchy of stable direction. References: I.5.18, I.5.19. See Motion and stability.

motus / motio / motor / mutare

motus / motio / motor / mutare. Printed forms: mobilibus; motoris; Motus; motus; mutantur.

Motion, mover, and change, whether local, qualitative, or operational. Higher bodies change modes of being; divine cognition does not acquire the successive changes of creaturely operation. References: II.4.7, II.7.8, II.9.5. See Motion and stability.

motus / motio / operatio

motus / motio / operatio. Printed forms: Motio; motus; Motus; operationis.

Motion or change / operation. The painter example defines motion through temporal succession, while immediate efficacious presentation remains an act. References: III.1.28, III.1.31. See Motion and stability.

movere / sistere / firmare

movere / sistere / firmare. Printed forms: firmant; firmatur; firmiterque; moveat; movetur; sistat.

To move, still, or make firm. A first source and final end both activate and settle desire; firmitas also describes stable knowing and causal support. References: II.3.9, II.4.7, II.7.32. See Motion and stability.

mutare / mutatio

mutare / mutatio. Printed forms: mutabitur; mutationem; mutatur.

Change / alteration. Soul changes in operation while its substance is said to persist; bodily quality changes in both respects. References: III.1.15, III.1.16, III.1.17. See Motion and stability.

norma

norma. Printed forms: norma.

A pattern or regular standard. Continuing in a stable pattern is the specified sense in which a moving thing stands within motion. References: I.5.8. See Motion and stability.

novus / varius

novus / varius. Printed forms: novas; novos; varias; variatur; variosque.

New; varied or changing. New cosmic effects require varied psychic activity, while soul varies through moments without losing essential or spatial unity. References: IV.1.56, IV.2.7, IV.2.16. See Motion and stability.

Parmenides Pythagoreus

Parmenides Pythagoreus. Printed forms: Parmenides Pythagoreus.

Parmenides described here as Pythagorean. Ficino attributes to him the contrast between turning the moving world and remaining unmoved; the attribution is not independently verified here. References: II.11.16. See Motion and stability.

partim

partim. Printed forms: partim.

Partly or in one respect. Soul is partly stable and partly mobile: the following units locate stability in substance and flow in operation. References: III.1.15. See Motion and stability.

partim ... partim

partim... partim. Printed forms: partim stat, partim vero movetur.

Stable in one respect and changing in another. The subsequent triad specifies the respects, preventing a vague claim that half a soul is spatially motionless and half moves. References: I.4.4. See Motion and stability.

per materiam / per substantiam

per materiam / per substantiam. Printed forms: per materiam; per substantiam.

Through matter and through substance as different bases of persistence. Ficino distinguishes matter remaining through substantial change from a substance remaining through changes of quantity, quality or place; “remaining” has a specified subject. References: I.5.9. See Motion and stability.

quasi non motus

quasi non motus. Printed forms: quasi non motus.

Almost not motion. Circular local motion preserves place and need not alter substance or natural quality, making it the closest bodily imitation of stability. References: IV.2.23. See Motion and stability.

quies / quiesco

quies / quiesco. Printed forms: quiete.

Rest or stability. Mind is said to advance through rest rather than bodily motion; the claim identifies the manner of intellectual perfection, not laziness or absence of all activity. References: I.5.17. See Motion and stability.

species motionis

species motionis. Printed forms: speciem motus; species alias.

A kind of motion, distinguished from other kinds. A thing can change in one respect while remaining unchanged in another, so partial rest is consistent with motion. References: I.5.9. See Motion and stability.

spontaneus / sponte

spontaneus / sponte. Printed forms: spontaneus; sponte.

Spontaneous or from an inward source. Natural circular return is used as a sign of inner life, with ut ita loquar qualifying the description. References: IV.1.69, IV.1.70. See Motion and stability.

stabilis causa / opus

stabilis causa / opus. Printed forms: causa; opus; stabile; stabilis.

An entirely stable cause and its stable work. The brief sentence explains why new variable effects require a mediating mutable activity. References: IV.2.17. See Motion and stability.

status / stare

status / stare. Printed forms: consistentem; stabiliore; stabilis; statu; status.

Stability or abiding condition, opposed to flux in this setting. A stable source must guide dependent flow; eternity is substantial stability rather than accidental temporal succession. References: II.3.8, II.5.2, II.7.8. See Motion and stability.

status / stat in motu

status / stat in motu. Printed forms: stat in motu; status.

Stability; remaining stable in motion. The next unit explains this as preserved moving power and a same, equal or similar pattern, not literal absence of every motion. References: I.5.7, I.5.8. See Motion and stability.

subito / paulatim

subito / paulatim. Printed forms: paulatim; subito.

Immediately / gradually. The contrast separates presentation and arousal from the painter’s successive observation and execution. References: III.1.27, III.1.28. See Motion and stability.

transferre / assequi

transferre / assequi. Printed forms: assequatur; assequitur; transferre.

Transfer or move to another state / acquire or attain. The immobility argument asks whether a supposed divine change gains something new, which would imply previous incompleteness. References: III.1.6. See Motion and stability.

vacillo

vacillo. Printed forms: vacillaret.

To waver or vacillate. If the higher cause changed as completely as quality, it would not surpass quality sufficiently; the verb expresses instability rather than indecision. References: I.4.4. See Motion and stability.

velox / tardus

velox / tardus. Printed forms: tardius; velocior; velocius; velox.

Swift or slow; comparative speed. Variable speed marks mutable living agency, while speed ordered into perpetual celestial motion supports the inference to inward life. References: IV.1.28, IV.1.74, IV.1.84. See Motion and stability.

violentus / violentia

violentus / violentia. Printed forms: violentia; violentiam; violentum.

Forced or contrary to the fitting natural course. Ficino argues that violence cannot explain motion that is enduring, uniform, and ordered. References: IV.1.54, IV.1.56. See Motion and stability.

Apelles (authorities and cited works)

Apelles. The painter in the meadow example: the scene presents itself at once, while the painter's observing and representing it proceed successively. The comparison explains how soul moves itself while receiving an external beginning and end. III.1.27–312345. See Motion and stability; Image and likeness.

Archimedes (authorities and cited works)

Archimedes. His revolving bronze spheres enter a hypothetical comparison about the temperament that moves heaven. Ficino uses it to press the question of an inward living and rational cause. IV.1.63. See Purity and mixture; Motion and stability.

Parmenides (authorities and cited works)

Parmenides. Called Pythagorean by Ficino and cited for the one, unmoved, infinite divine being and the unmoved source of the world's turning. II.7.1; II.11.16. See God; Motion and stability.

Xenocrates (authorities and cited works)

Xenocrates. Named as using the Pythagorean definition of soul as self-moving number. Ficino glosses number as manifold nature and self-moving as mutable through its own property. III.1.23. See Number; Motion and stability.

Laws (authorities and cited works)

Laws. Invoked for providential governance and for the source of motion when all things are imagined at rest. II.13.24; III.1.26. See Providence; Motion and stability.

Phaedrus (authorities and cited works)

Phaedrus. Invoked for soul as fountain and principle of motion. III.1.26. See Motion and stability.

Use in the book

Book V’s first two proofs deliberately approach immortality from opposite directions. In V.12345 the rational soul is the primary moving source. It supplies inward motion, identified with life, and outward motion to bodies. A derivative mover continues only while attached to what moves it; a self-mover cannot be deserted by its mover without being deserted by itself. Ficino then tests three hypothetical orders of failure: being ends before motion, motion before being, or both together. He rejects the first because motion needs an existent source, the second because spontaneous activity accompanies self-motion, and the third because neither the inward life-giving principle nor an outside mover can originate the required destructive alteration.

V.2 argues from stability instead. The soul changes in operation while remaining in substance. There is no contradiction within Ficino’s classification: the subject of successive acts is not itself a succession of perishing subjects. V.3 consequently allows bodily affection in the capacity for operating while excluding it from essence. The claim is stronger and more specific than “nothing ever affects us.”

The same contrast recurs in V.10.2–32: mutable operations generate mutable bodily forms, while the soul’s stable essence relates it stably to God. V.15.5–62 illustrates the distinction through purposive action. A moving work unfolds successively, but purpose, attention, memory and expectation can be held together by the mind. These are Ficino’s reasons for substantial permanence; they should not be redescribed as modern empirical demonstrations that the mind is physiologically unaffected.

Places to read

1. V.1.1, V.1.2Self-motion, dependence of derivative movement, and three imagined orders of cessation.
2. V.2.1, V.3.1Changing operation is distinguished from abiding substance and essence.
3. V.10.2, V.10.3Mutable production below soul contrasts with its stable relation above.
4. V.15.5, V.15.6The simultaneous direction of a temporally unfolding task supplies a later illustration.

Translation in this edition

The apparatus explains primary motion as hierarchical rather than merely first in time. At V.1.1 the source retains assiduus comes, without the non printed in the two later witnesses: the negative would reverse the premise that self-motion continually accompanies its source. The authorial addition about attachment to a mover is also incorporated. Status is accordingly translated “stability” at V.2.1.

immobilis / stabilis

immobilis / stabilis. Printed forms: immobile; immobilis; stabilem; stabilia; stabilis.

Unmoved or stable, especially the abiding essence contrasted with changing operations. The soul can direct a moving task without being dissolved into the task's successive phases. References: V.10.3, V.12.13, V.15.5, V.15.6. See Motion and substantial stability.

motio

motio. Printed forms: motionem; motionis.

Movement, particularly as an effect requiring a primary moving source. The fountain of motion supplies the movement of matter and remains distinct from its instrumental qualities. References: V.1.2, V.4.10, V.15.5. See Motion and substantial stability.

motor

motor. Printed forms: motor; motore; motori.

A mover or source of movement. A derivative movable continues while attached to its mover; the self-mover is identical with its mover and cannot be abandoned by it. References: V.1.1. See Motion and substantial stability.

motus / movere

motus / movere. Printed forms: motam; motis; motu; motui; motum; motus; movebit; moventur; movet.

Motus is motion or activity, ranging from bodily movement to inward living self-motion; movere is to move, and motam means moved in rem motam, the thing moved, at V.15.5. The first proof identifies inward movement with life, while V.2 distinguishes motion of operation from stable substance. References: V.1.1, V.1.5, V.2.1, V.12.13, V.15.5. See Motion and substantial stability.

Movement and the action of moving. The severed-fragment objection uses apparent continued movement; the harmony critique distinguishes moving constituents from the outcome they produce. References: VII.5.4, VII.6.1, VII.10.1. See Harmony and the strings.

motus internus / externus

motus internus / externus. Printed forms: Internus motus; motum internum atque externum.

Inward and outward movement, distinguishing the soul's own life from movement communicated beyond it. Ficino expressly calls inward motion life before reasoning from self-supply to unceasing living. References: V.1.1. See Motion and substantial stability.

mutare / mutatio

mutare / mutatio. Printed forms: Mutabile; Mutabiles; mutabili; mutabiliter; mutatio; mutationis; mutatur; mutetur.

To change and changeability, whether in operation, material constitution or essence. The stable-essence/mobile-operation distinction prevents every altered bodily or cognitive condition from counting as soul's destruction. References: V.2.1, V.10.2, V.12.13, V.15.13. See Motion and substantial stability.

primo moveri

primo moveri. Printed forms: primo; primo moventur; primo movetur.

Moving primarily, with causal or hierarchical priority rather than simply earlier on a clock. Primary self-motion supports freedom from an outside mover and, in V.523456789, independence from matter. References: V.1.1, V.5.8. See Motion and substantial stability.

spontaneus

spontaneus. Printed forms: spontaneus.

Spontaneous or self-originated, describing the movement that accompanies a self-mover. The positive statement that such movement is a constant companion is the reading adopted against a later inserted negation. References: V.1.1. See Motion and substantial stability.

status

status. Printed forms: statu; statum.

Stability or abiding condition, as distinguished from changing operation. The second proof uses stability as a separate route to immortality; later arguments deny that body dislodges soul from its own state. References: V.2.1, V.14.8. See Motion and substantial stability.

substantia

substantia. Printed forms: Substantia; substantia; substantiae; substantiam; Substantiam; substantiarum; substantias; substantiis.

Substance or subsisting nature, contrasted locally with its operations and accidents. Soul remains in substance while operating successively; in creatures operative power is distinct from substance. References: V.1.5, V.2.1, V.12.2, V.13.13, V.15.6, V.15.10. See Motion and substantial stability.

Substance or the underlying nature whose form and operation are being explained. Phantasy conjectures it without its account; definition seeks what it is; operation is not allowed to outrank its producing substance. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.4.4, VIII.10.1, VIII.10.2. See Kind, generation, and operation’s dependence on substance.