Fountain, ocean, streams, and treasury

Meaning

Fountain, ocean, streams and treasury distinguish a full source from distributed derivative powers. They are relational images, not interchangeable names for an ingredient.

II.4.7 calls Christ the true ocean in the saving comparison, while natural particular medicines are streams whose powers are limited and mixed. Earth is treasury and dispenser for the natural spirit: it receives, stores and distributes rather than independently creating every virtue. Seeking the fountain therefore means seeking a less restricted source, yet the author explicitly retains particular remedies.

In the concluding quotation attributed to Pico, Theologie concerns the supreme divinity; the fontaine de sapience names a source of wisdom; methaphisique des intelligences concerns the intellectual beings or principles of the quoted metaphysics, not the covert agreements called intelligences in Book III. The fleuve de science is explicitly glossed as firmly grounded philosophy of natural things. Science here is knowledge in that learned account, not an assertion of modern disciplinary method. These waters describe the riches held in the reserved books; the sequence should not be forced into a rigid one-to-one scheme matching the preceding sight, understanding and source triad. Spiritual salvation, philosophical knowledge and natural efficacy share source imagery without becoming one object.

The English keeps source and downstream terms distinct and retains Pico as the quoted voice at the chapter's close. A treasury's dispensation is not translated as autonomous creation.