IO. FRANCESCO PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, BOOK ONE ON THE DEATH OF CHRIST AND THE THOUGHT OF ONE'S OWN DEATH.

Chapter One. That love is present in all things.

Love is present in all things of the universe

It is a very ancient and commonplace opinion, received and confirmed by the consensus of all who are well-regarded in literature, that love is present in all things. It is present not only in transmundane substances entirely separated from sensible matter, but also in humans, in brutes, and even in plants and inanimate things themselves. Although these inanimate things are utterly devoid of cognition and sense, they still strive by a natural love, innate in their own forms, to attain their proper seat and place in which they may be preserved. Thus, we perceive fire, by its own lightness, being carried upward; the earth, by its own weight, seeking the center; and trees sending their branches into the air and fixing their roots in the ground. They called this love, or appetite (for we intend to speak of both interchangeably), "natural"; and they called that other one "sensible," which follows its own apprehension, Natural love. yet does not proceed from the examination of reason. Such sensible is what we see in que brutes; they seek things desired in a tumultuous, Sensible. rapid, and headlong course, and flee from those things that are harsh. To the love of man, they gave the name "rational appetite," as it is something we moderate by reason, and, having placed it in a balance, we weigh it with appropriate consideration, determining toward what we ought to incline it. Intellectual love fell to separate spirits from the beginning, Rational. for which reason many, because of pride, fell into the abyss of this murky air and the infernal seats; while the rest were established in grace and attained perpetual blessedness. The more perfect they are, the more vehement is the impulse of love with which they are carried toward God, to whom not only is love appropriate, but He is Himself (if I may say so) love and infinite charity, the source and origin of all love. Intellectual. Since He is the supreme good, He loves Himself supremely, for it is not doubted that the object of love (as the moderns call it) is the good. Indeed, He loves other things only insofar as they are good, since they have received their essence and goodness from His intellect and will. Divine