Temperament, flux and the stable ruler · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordComplexio is humoral and bodily temperament.
In the Platonic TheologyThe identity argument applies not only to a soul-body but to soul identified with quality or temperament.
In this editionThe apparatus retains innumeralis from M1482 and G1559 against P1641’s innumerabilis.
A place to readQualitative flux threatens form, unity, continuity, order and the limit of growth.

Meaning

Complexio is humoral and bodily temperament. Effluere and refluere are flowing out and back. Innumeralis unitas is the organism’s unity not reducible to a counted succession of material replacements. Ordinatrix and rector name the ordering power and ruler; terminus is the limit it imposes on growth.

Use in the book

The identity argument applies not only to a soul-body but to soul identified with quality or temperament. Qualities change as humours change; nutrition would therefore make the supposed soul flow out and back with bodily matter. The animal would lack constancy in form as well as in matter, and its unity and the continuity of nourishment or growth would have no stable source.

Ficino requires a ruler that remains in itself, orders the sequence of these processes and fixes how far they should proceed. The conclusion is about a continuing source of organized change, not the absence of change in the living organism. It also differentiates soul from the temperament it establishes, as VI.9.4 already insisted. The measure and stopping point of growth matter as much as motion’s initiation. Historical humours are the example through which Ficino states the general demand for stability in what coordinates a succession.

Places to read

VI.13.8Qualitative flux threatens form, unity, continuity, order and the limit of growth.
VI.9.4Soul is already distinguished from humoral tempering and named as its substantial source.

Translation in this edition

The apparatus retains innumeralis from M1482 and G1559 against P1641’s innumerabilis. The English “unity beyond number” is an interpretive rendering, explained by the apparatus through the succession of counted material constituents; it is not a claim that the animal contains an actually infinite number of souls.

complexio humorum

complexio humorum. Printed forms: complexio aliqua humorum atque membrorum.

A temperament of humours and members. The final reductio extends from a literal soul-body to the subtler theory that soul is a bodily quality. References: VI.13.8. See Temperament, flux and the stable ruler.

continuatio; ordinatrix

continuatio; ordinatrix. Printed forms: continuatio; ordinatrix.

Continuity and an ordering power. Nourishment and growth require a stable principle that coordinates their sequence through change. References: VI.13.8. See Temperament, flux and the stable ruler.

effluere; refluere

effluere; refluere. Printed forms: effluet refluetque; fluit.

To flow out and back; to flow. Qualitative as well as material replacement would deprive the animal of an enduring formal source. References: VI.13.8. See Temperament, flux and the stable ruler.

fluere

fluere. Printed forms: confluentibus; effluat; effluet; effluit; fluentes; fluit; influat; influenti; influentibus; influit.

To flow, flow out, flow in or flow together. The book uses flux for changing matter and alleged soul-substance, and flowing also pictures causal communication; local causal direction prevents a single literal hydrodynamic reading. References: VI.9.2, VI.11.1, VI.13.6, VI.13.8, VI.13.9, VI.13.10, VI.13.11. See Temperament, flux and the stable ruler.

innumeralis unitas

innumeralis unitas. Printed forms: innumeralis unitas animalis.

The animal’s unity beyond a succession of numbered material constituents. The reading is innumeralis, not the later innumerabilis; it concerns stable organic identity rather than an actual infinity. References: VI.13.8. See Temperament, flux and the stable ruler.

terminus; rector

terminus; rector. Printed forms: ordinat sistitque mobilia; rectorem; terminum.

Limit and ruler that orders and arrests moving things. The source must determine not only motion but how far nourishment and growth should proceed. References: VI.13.8. See Temperament, flux and the stable ruler.