Nutrition, growth and the principal agent

Use in the book

The opening premise fixes the causal resources under examination. A bodily constitution and the form dependent upon it can act only through the qualities composing that constitution. Simply renaming the resulting form therefore cannot explain an operation beyond those qualities’ powers. Ficino tests this limitation through nourishment: heat penetrates and dissolves food, but nutrition achieves a determinate organic result. Soul’s nutritive power uses heat as an instrument, cooking and digesting the food and bringing it to living flesh and the human figure. The distinction is between heat’s characteristic work and the ordering of that work into this living body. It does not deny that heat genuinely contributes.

Growth adds both a means and a measure. It proceeds through nourishment, yet reaches a particular magnitude and figure. Heat considered through its own quality does not prescribe that organism’s boundary: given further material, it spreads. The principal agent must account for why the process stops at a fitting size and acquires its proper shape. Mere possession of heat, or possession of more heat, is insufficient within this argument. Calling the directing cause a craftsman emphasizes its prescription and ordering; it does not require the nutritive soul to deliberate verbally like a human artisan.

Three exclusions then follow on different grounds. Soul is not one accidental form, because the organized effect exceeds the power of heat, which Ficino treats as the leading accidental quality. It is not a collection of accidental forms, because adding qualities lacking a determinate limit, degree, proportion and figure does not explain their ordering toward those determinations. Finally, it is not the substantial form of an element or elemental mixture of the restricted kind under discussion. Such a form has movement toward one terminus, whereas the animal’s growth extends in every direction. This third argument depends on directional range, rather than repeating the earlier accident/substance distinction.

The phrase about growth in every direction contrasts organic growth with one-directional elemental movement. It should not be converted into a geometrical law that every bodily part grows by identical measured increments or that every animal becomes a sphere. Nor do the exclusions amount to “soul is not form.” The body-building soul is subsequently affirmed as substance, and one living being requires one form, mover and ruler. The distinction is between the kinds of forms proposed and the organized effects they can explain.

“Principal” therefore names a relative role within a bounded operation. The same heat can be a genuine cause of dissolution and an instrument of nutrition. A created soul can be principal relative to that heat while depending on higher causes for its own being and powers. God’s universal causal priority answers a different explanatory question. Identifying the chief agent of growth does not turn it into the absolute First Cause of all being, and denying principal agency to heat does not remove its instrumental efficacy. These are the distinctions on which the historical physiological example depends.

Places to read

1. VII.8.1Instrumental heat, principal agency, bounded growth and three exclusions occur in a single continuous argument.
2. VII.9.2The soul’s making, preserving and repairing of its own body supplies the positive causal role.
3. VII.13.1Nutritive power is again said to act above and beyond elemental order.

Translation in this edition

The translation preserves both “principal cause” and “principal craftsman.” Principalem... fabrum is an explanatory craft image; causa principali is the same local ranking of causal contribution. Neither should be silently translated as “first cause.” These conclusions concern Ficino’s natural philosophy, not established digestive physiology.

augmentum

augmentum. Printed forms: augmenti; augmentum; Augmentum.

Organic growth through nourishment. Its definite magnitude and shape require a principal agent; it is not just indefinite spreading of heat through available matter. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

calor / penetrare / dissolvere

calor / penetrare / dissolvere. Printed forms: calor; calorem; caloris; Caloris; dissolvere; dissolvit; penetrare.

Heat and its proper actions of penetrating and dissolving. Heat contributes to nutrition as an instrument but does not itself specify living flesh or the animal’s final dimensions. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

causa principalis

causa principalis. Printed forms: causa principali; principalem; principalem augmenti fabrum; principali; principali agente.

The principal cause, agent or craftsman determining organic growth. Heat is rejected in this role and retained as instrument; principal here is a relative causal rank, not the absolute First Cause. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

cibus / nutrimentum / viva caro

cibus / nutrimentum / viva caro. Printed forms: carnis; cibos; nutrimentum; vivae carnis.

Food, nourishment and living flesh. The nutritive transformation’s definite living product makes the distinction between instrumental heating and formative agency visible. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

concludere / probare

concludere / probare. Printed forms: Concluditur; concluditur; probandum; probavimus.

To infer a conclusion or establish a thesis through argument. The three conclusions about soul’s relation to qualities in the growth chapter must remain distinct; earlier proofs do not eliminate the need for arguments proper to a further claim. References: VII.7.1, VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

concoquere / digerere

concoquere / digerere. Printed forms: concoquit; digeritque.

To cook or bring to digestive readiness, and digest or distribute in an ordered process. These actions are coupled with producing living flesh; they are more than the mere dissolution heat can accomplish. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

conflare / peragere

conflare / peragere. Printed forms: conflata; peragitur.

To compose together and carry an operation through. A constitution’s activity is performed through the powers of its component qualities, setting the limit tested by nutrition. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

elementum / mixtum

elementum / mixtum. Printed forms: elementi; mixti.

An element or mixed body considered through its determinate natural form. The final argument contrasts its movement toward a single terminus with organic growth extending in every direction. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

instrumentum

instrumentum. Printed forms: instrumenta; instrumentis; instrumentum.

An instrument carrying a principal agent's action to a recipient. Bodily qualities serve soul instrumentally, but creation is said to lack the subject, motion and time required for instrumental action. References: V.4.10, V.13.14, V.14.8. See Instrument and creative mediation.

An organ or instrument fitted to a power’s activity. External senses, the bodily medium and nutritive heat are instruments in different contexts; none is simply the source of its own ordered use. References: VII.2.1, VII.6.3, VII.8.1, VII.9.2. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

nutritiva potentia

nutritiva potentia. Printed forms: nutritiva potentia.

The soul’s power of nourishment. It uses heat but directs food toward living flesh and the determinate human figure, exceeding heat’s own characteristic work. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

praescribere / ordinare / vagari

praescribere / ordinare / vagari. Printed forms: ordinare; praescribi; rationaliter; vagantur.

To prescribe, order and move without a determinate direction or limit. Qualities lacking an organism’s definite plan require an agent to direct them to its proper shape and growth. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

super et praeter ordinem elementorum

super et praeter ordinem elementorum. Printed forms: super et praeter ordinem elementorum.

Above and beyond the elemental order. Both relations characterize the nutritive activity whose distinct principal agency was explained through growth and digestion. References: VII.13.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.

terminus / gradus / proportio / figura

terminus / gradus / proportio / figura. Printed forms: figura; figuram; gradu; proportione; termino; terminum.

Limit, degree, proportion and shape as determinations imposed on natural activity. The soul orders otherwise wandering qualities toward the organized result; these terms do not all mean mere size. References: VII.8.1. See Nutrition, growth and the principal agent.