Chapter 2 Matter as a Mirror: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance ...

Matter as a Mirror 61
others when she goes forth into some one individual thing;
but, while she preserves all she goes forth into individuals.
Justly we are entitled to call her, therefore, the centre of
nature, the universal mean, the chain or succession of the
world, the face of all, the knot and bond of the universe. 49
In this case, soul not only functions as the mediating agency in the
centre of creation, but may even be said to produce lower things. For the
lowest manifestation of form, the qualities, the contact with the material
world has disastrous consequences: matter, which is in itself motionless and
entirely passive, is moved by the qualities. Once they become immersed into
the corporeal world, the qualities lose in power and become the potentially
inefficient tools of the soul. 50
Ficino says that these “instruments of the soul” become crippled
as they get immersed in matter, plunged as they are like the souls of the
deceased into the river Lethe. By extension, matter dilutes the powers of the
concentrated principles. 51 That embodied qualities become “lame” points
49 Trans. Allen (1987) 399; Theologia III, 2: I, 141–142: “Reliqua enim sub Deo unum
quidam in se singula sunt, haec omnia simul. Imagines in se possidet divinorum, a quibus
ipsa dependet inferiorum rationes et exemplaria, quae quodammodo et ipsa producit. Et
cum media omnium sit, Vires possidet omnium. [Quod] si ita est, transit in omnia. Et quia
ipsa vera est universorum connexio, dum in alia migrat, non deserit alia, sed migrat in
singula, ac semper cuncta conservat, ut merito dici possit centrum naturae, universorum
medium, mundi series, vultus omnium nodusque et copula mundi.” On soul producing
bodies, see Theologia VI, 1: I, 271.
50 Collins (1974) 21: “Each level in the hierarchy of the universe is related to its superior
as moved to mover; thus , each level is superior in efficacious power to the one below
it. The hierarchy of the universe consists of various grades of power, and power is identified
with unity. This framework within which Ficino’s whole discussion proceeds is taken
from Proclus. Also, Ficino insists that efficacious power belongs only to the incorporeal;
the corporeal is completely impotent because of its divisibility. He argues that quality is
perishable because it is divided in the body and because it belongs to a substance by which
it cannot be abandoned. He places the soul between mind which is completely stable and
quality which is completely unstable, and concludes that the soul is stable, but mobile in
operation. These themes are to be found in Proclus’ Elements of Theology.”
51 Theologia I, 3: I, 51: “Qualitas autem est proxima quantitati. Itaque non est omnino
sufficiens qualitas ad extrinsecam actionem. Si ergo claudicat ad agendum, a substantia
superiore dirigitur, quae omnino sit potens. Merito qualitas claudicat, quoniam
eo ipso momento quo nascitur spargitur per materiae latitudinem profunditatinemque,
et quasi Letho flumine mergitur. Quo fit ut, antequam ipsa agat quicquam, a materia