Natural motion and natural place

Use in the book

Ficino distinguishes a body's proper circuit within its own sphere from its straight-line return after displacement. Ascent and descent are therefore called restorations to natural place and motion, rather than natural motion in the strict sense. The sphere's soul recalls detached parts, giving the magnet-and-iron analogy its explanatory role. This account should not be translated into modern gravitational language without qualification. In Chapter 2, natural place also helps explain why a heavenly sphere rotates rather than travels elsewhere: it remains within its appropriate encompassing surface while its parts seek equal access to all of it. Saturn's sphere supplies the example, with the concave surface of the eighth sphere as its natural place. Cardo there denotes the axis or governing pivot around which the circuit continues. The discussion assumes nested spheres and a bounded corporeal cosmos, which are features of the historical model.

An important apparent tension concerns the earth. IV.1.75 mentions Egelias as holding that it moves, but retains the prevailing assertion of its rest; Ficino nevertheless describes its parts as pressing continually around the world's center. IV.2.22 again opposes unmoving earth to heaven's ceaseless motion. Thus the treatment should not be recruited as an unqualified endorsement of terrestrial rotation. The edition deliberately preserves the obscure name Egelias without conjectural correction, and nothing in the supplied apparatus independently resolves that attribution.

The reported mental-presence account places fire’s goal at the concavity of the outermost heaven. A little flame would reach it if unimpeded, fill it if sufficiently large, and be wholly at every point if indivisible. These increasingly qualified suppositions model complete enjoyment of a natural end. Mind is then said to run toward true good first through essential, then vital, then intellectual instinct. The order distinguishes levels of orientation; it does not make deliberate thinking the origin of every inclination.

The “bounds of nature” are not a literal fence but the limits of proper place and motion. Ascent and descent are treated as a quick straight-line restoration to that condition, rather than the fully natural perpetual circuit itself. In the following units, the restoration's externally determined terminus and single path are evidence against independent self-motion in the parts. The hypothetical consequence matters: if those parts moved themselves in the relevant way, they could also stop of themselves or act otherwise. The text does not simply replace every bodily regularity with a freely choosing minute soul.

Further passage references. IV.1.74–IV.1.77234; IV.2.19; IV.2.22–IV.2.262345.

II.6.23: The conditional flame comparison supports the earlier thinkers’ account of mind’s essential orientation

IV.1.75–7723: proper circuit, rectilinear restoration, fixed path, and hypothetical freedom distinguish kinds of motion

Places to read

1. IV.1.75Proper circuit is distinguished from rectilinear return after displacement; earth’s motion remains qualified
2. IV.1.76The determinate return-path indicates direction by another source
3. IV.2.25Saturn’s sphere seeks fuller enjoyment of its encompassing place and wholly present soul
4. II.6.23The earlier thinkers’ conditional flame analogy concerns orientation to a natural goal

Translation in this edition

IV.1.75 expressly calls ascent and descent restorations rather than natural motion in the strict sense. Its statement about earth is conditional and retains the prevailing claim of rest; the obscure source name Egelias is not silently corrected. These are historical cosmological claims, not modern gravitational explanations.

The heaven and flame statements are Ficino’s reported cosmological reasoning, not contemporary physics. The three “if” conditions and the attribution framing II.6.14–24234567891011 must survive any shortened explanation. The apparatus also explains that instinctu is understood after vitali and intellectuali; the English supplies the noun in each member.

The earth-moving proposal remains conditional and assigned to the retained name Egelias. “In a certain fashion” qualifies the description of earth's parts circling its center through mutual pressure.

annixus / coartare

annixus / coartare. Printed forms: annixu; coartant.

Pressing effort; constraining or pressing together. Earth's parts are said to circle the center in a qualified manner through their mutual pressure. References: IV.1.75. See Natural motion and natural place.

cancelli / restitutio

cancelli / restitutio. Printed forms: cancellos; restitutio.

Bounds; restoration to a proper condition. Fully natural motion stays within natural place; rectilinear ascent or descent restores a displaced part to it. References: IV.1.75. See Natural motion and natural place.

currere / incurrere / incumbere

currere / incurrere / incumbere. Printed forms: currit; incumbunt; incurrunt.

To run, encounter, or bend toward a goal. The verbs portray coordinated tendency and essential orientation without requiring literal locomotion of mind. References: II.2.8, II.6.17, II.6.23. See Natural motion and natural place.

Egelias / crinitae

Egelias / crinitae. Printed forms: crinitarum; Egelias.

A retained named advocate of earth's motion; comets. Earth's circular motion is conditional; the revolution of comets is invoked within the historical cosmology as evidence for air and fire's circling. References: IV.1.75. See Natural motion and natural place.

flammula / concavum / evolare

flammula / concavum / evolare. Printed forms: concavum; evolaret; flammula.

Little flame, concavity, and upward flight. A chain of conditional flame-examples models attaining and wholly enjoying a natural goal within the reported theory. References: II.6.23. See Natural motion and natural place.

gravitas / levitas

gravitas / levitas. Printed forms: gravitas; gravitate; Levitas; levitate.

Heaviness and lightness as directional qualities. These qualities have restricted downward or upward tendencies, unlike perpetual returning celestial motion. References: IV.1.55, IV.1.56. See Natural motion and natural place.

levitas / gravitas

levitas / gravitas. Printed forms: gravitatis; levitatis.

Lightness and heaviness as directed tendencies. The spark rises and wood falls in the examples; these are Ficino’s inherited physical explanations, not modern definitions of mass or gravity. References: I.2.2. See Natural motion and natural place.

praecipitium / tenor

praecipitium / tenor. Printed forms: praecipitium; tenorem.

A precipice; a sustained course or tenor. Flowing downward and maintaining a uniform course distinguish elemental regularity from a hypothetical minute soul's variable motion. References: IV.1.77. See Natural motion and natural place.

sursum / deorsum

sursum / deorsum. Printed forms: deorsum; sursum.

Upward and downward. They first describe light and heavy bodies’ tendencies, then the living power’s movement of food contrary to those tendencies as life requires. References: I.2.2, I.3.23. See Natural motion and natural place.

trames

trames. Printed forms: tramitem.

A single track or route. A predetermined route and externally bounded destination are evidence against a part's independent self-motion. References: IV.1.76. See Natural motion and natural place.

Egelias (authorities and cited works)

Egelias. The retained source name associated with a view that earth moves. Ficino gives the circular motion conditionally and also reports the predominant view that earth remains still. The edition does not resolve the name by conjectural correction. IV.1.75. See Natural motion and natural place.