The Minor Works of Marsilio Ficino

formable things. Finally, three types of brightness derive from the light of the sun, whether through the heavens or beneath the heavens. For light is either entirely white original: "candidum" — meaning a brilliant, clear, or white light., or entirely red, or a mixture of both. Since light exists as both a very close likeness to and, as it were, the very principle of knowledge original: "cognitionis" — the process of acquiring knowledge or understanding.—especially sensory knowledge—it is fitting that three kinds of senses are seen to correspond to these three types of light.

To redness, the entirely bodily senses correspond: namely, touch and taste. To whiteness, however, correspond the senses that are mostly incorporeal: namely, imagination In this historical context, "imagination" (imaginatio) was considered a "sense" or faculty that processed mental images, positioned between the physical senses and higher intellect. and sight. But to the mixed light, the senses that are intermediate between the corporeal and the incorporeal also correspond: namely, hearing and smell.

Thus far, the light of the sun is not only an image of such things, but also their cause. To Pure Intelligence The highest level of the mind in Neoplatonic philosophy, which grasps truth directly and intuitively without the need for step-by-step reasoning., however, it is only an image. For just as pure intelligence acts in an instant, penetrates the depths, and makes things clear—remaining meanwhile unmixed with anything and existing on high—so too does light in an instant spread itself through all things and make individual things manifest. It is simultaneously whole and indivisible everywhere, mixed with nothing...