Spring and source

Use in the book

The geographical description includes springs among earth’s waters. The Timaeus physiology compares internal bodily heat to a spring of fire, using the familiar image of an issuing source to explain the origin of movement. The comparison does not identify a discrete anatomical organ called a spring.

Places to read

1. I.40.1.11Springs appear alongside rivers in the description of earth.
2. I.60.1.5A spring of fire figures the internal source of bodily heat.

Translation in this edition

“Spring” preserves the image; “source” makes the extended sense explicit.

Use in the book

The image serves both nature and theology. The sun is a fountain of pleasures because its light sustains a network of benefits; love is a fountain because it seeks and creates the happiness of its object. In the Trinitarian argument, fountain and stream are not alien substances but the same love in communication. The soul can itself be a real fountain of answering love, even while the mirror image shows its dependence on divine beams. Fountain-language thus holds together derivation, continuity, and genuine creaturely activity.

Places to read

1. II.7The sun is called the light and fountain of bodily and visible pleasures.
2. II.25Love appears as a fountain of benefits whose delight is to magnify its object.
3. II.41Love in the fountain and in the stream remains one communicated love.
4. IV.84The soul is a real fountain of love, compared with a mirror returning received sunlight.

In this edition

A fountain does not imply a finite reservoir drained by its outflow. Nor should the soul’s dependence on a source erase the passage’s insistence that its loving activity is real.

Use in the book

Guérin repeatedly thinks about feeling through the relation between hidden supply and visible outflow. Early readings can still draw tears from the almost exhausted springs of youth. In March 1833 universal life wells from an invisible fountain and circulates through the world; the image stresses emergence and communication rather than a static reservoir.

The source can also be an object of exact perception. The December scale of natural voices begins with a spring rustling in moss and reaches the ocean’s immense harmonies. The small origin has its own audible life. In January, another person’s transparent heart is compared to the clearest spring, making visibility into depth possible.

By December 1834 the danger is closure: inward springs seem to stop supplying life. That fear differs from simply possessing too little water. The very power that ordinarily renews the self appears interrupted. Throughout these uses the spring gives Guérin an image of resources whose origin is partly hidden but whose existence is known through flow.

Places to read

1. 30 July 1832 · ¶2Revisiting early reading draws on nearly exhausted springs of youth
2. 30 March 1833 · ¶1An invisible fountain initiates life’s circulation
3. 21 December 1833 · ¶2The tiny mossy spring anchors the lowest end of nature’s immense vocal range
4. 10 December 1834 · ¶3The interruption of inward springs threatens continuing imaginative life

Translation in this edition

Fontaine is translated fountain in the March circulation passage but spring in the December sound passage. This follows the different imaginative settings; it does not establish two French technical categories.

Use in the book

In the two-principle argument, features springing from the same unrestricted nature would arise in the same way and flow inward again; this challenges their alleged difference. The following chapter turns flow into a test of dependent being: whatever flows from another is not its own stable source. Without a first principle, Ficino argues, all things would be in flux and the stability actually encountered would lack explanation. Liquid restrained by a solid illustrates the need for something unlike the flux it holds.

The metaphors are not uniformly negative. Outflow can mean productive bestowal; return-flow can mean restoration; divine influx preserves natural things. A source is most perfect in itself in II.7.16, where the word supports an argument against matter, world, and mind being their own essential origins. Context determines whether flowing means generous production, received existence, unstable dependence, or return.

Places to read

1. II.2.4The same vein and mode of outflow challenge allegedly different properties
2. II.3.3, II.3.7, II.3.8Flow and drifting are distinguished from the stable source that restrains them
3. II.3.10, II.7.16, II.7.17Outflow, return, source, and preserving influx have positive causal functions

Translation in this edition

“Flow,” “in flux,” “spring,” and “influx” should be kept distinct. They do not describe divine fluid or imply that the first cause loses material as effects proceed from it.

cardo / liquidus / solidus

cardo / liquidus / solidus. Printed forms: cardinis; liquido; liquidorum; soliditatem; solido.

Pivot; liquid; solid or firm. A solid restrains liquid flux as stable first source restrains dependence; solidity also preserves the statue’s material. References: II.3.8, II.7.17. See Spring and flow.

fluere / fluitare / fluxus

fluere / fluitare / fluxus. Printed forms: effluxus; fluentium; fluit; fluitabunt; fluitat; fluxerunt; fluxum; refluunt.

To flow; to drift or remain unstable; a flowing process. The wordplay connects dependence on another with instability, while return-flow and outpouring have positive causal senses. References: II.3.3, II.3.7, II.3.8, II.3.10. See Spring and flow.

fons / influxus

fons / influxus. Printed forms: fons; fonte; influxu.

Source or spring; incoming preserving flow. Self-source would entail supreme perfection; nature endures through divine influx; light is compared with the source of colors. References: II.7.16, II.7.17, II.10.12. See Spring and flow.

manare / emanare

manare / emanare. Printed forms: emanabit; manantis; manantium; manaverint.

To flow from or emanate, as a metaphor of derived existence. Effects flow from another and continue to depend on their origin rather than becoming self-sustaining. References: II.1.2, II.3.7, II.3.8, II.7.23. See Spring and flow.

scaturire / vena

scaturire / vena. Printed forms: scaturiens; Scaturiet; vena.

To well up or spring forth; a vein or spring-channel. Identical effects springing from one unrestricted source cannot explain the two proposed differentiating properties. References: II.2.4. See Spring and flow.