  Although it would have seemed artificial to Ficino to separate certain areas of philosophizing from each other, nevertheless, it is useful, as a heuristic device, to consider subjects such as ontology separately (see Allen 1982). And here, in the context of discussing being and its levels, without doubt Ficino’s first debt was to Plotinus. Plotinus had expressed himself variously, but it is not inaccurate to say that, for him, there had been four general levels to the cosmos, beginning with The One (to hen). This level represented, for Plotinus, a hybrid of Plato’s Form of the Good and Aristotle’s prime mover. It stood at the summit of the ontological hierarchy and was so great, indeed, that it was outside of Being itself. It was everywhere, “filling all things,” yet it was also nowhere, since it must be distinct from the world it created (Enneads, 3.9.4). Thinking, it overflowed into the next ontological level, Mind, which in succession overflowed into Soul, which overflowed into a fourth realm that included Nature, Matter, and Sensation. Just as Plotinus varied his descriptions of these ontological levels throughout the Enneads, so too did Ficino (Allen 1982). That said, Ficino did, in numerous places, suggest a five-part (instead of a four-part) ontological scheme, which began with God, followed by Angelic Mind, Rational Soul (in which human beings take part), “Quality” (a kind of ontological glue that stands between matter and soul), and finally matter, the level in which we human beings are embodied and from which we must try to liberate ourselves by living a philosophical life. 