 In Taurellus’s view, several arguments provide reasons against understanding subsistence dependence of created beings in terms of formal emanation. Taurellus holds that elements possess forms and forces that are independent of any continued divine agency. That he ascribes formal properties to elements that are independent of a continuous conserving activity of God becomes clear, where he discusses Piccolomini’s claim that every part of the world depends on God (Piccolomini 1596b: bk. II, ch. 2). Taurellus points out that Piccolomini derives this claim from Marsilio Ficino, who held that corporeal mass cannot exist on its own since otherwise it would form itself (see Ficino 2001–2006: vol. 1, 18–27). As Ficino and Piccolomini argue, conveying form onto a corporeal substance is not a property of body since all active beings act by means of some incorporeal faculty.