The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

TH TRACTATE
On the Nature and Source of Evil

I.

Those enquiring whence Evil enters into beings, or rather into a certain order of beings, would be making the best beginning if they established, first of all, what precisely Evil is, what constitutes its Nature. At once we should know whence it comes, where it has its native seat and where it is present merely as an accident ; and there would be no further question as to whether it has Authentic-Existence.

But a difficulty arises. By what faculty in us could we possibly know Evil ?

All knowing comes by likeness. The Intellectual-Principle and the Soul, being Ideal-Forms, would know Ideal-Forms and would have a natural tendency towards them ; but who could imagine Evil to be an Ideal-Form, seeing that it manifests itself as the very absence of Good ?

If the solution is that the one act of knowing covers contraries, and that as Evil is the contrary to Good the one act would grasp Good and Evil together, then to know Evil there must be first a clear perception and understanding of Good, since the nobler existences precede the baser and are Ideal-Forms while the less good hold no such standing, are nearer to Non-Being.

No doubt there is a question in what precise way Good is contrary to Evil — whether it is as First-Principle to last of things or as Ideal- Form to utter Lack (to Non-entity) : but this subject we postpone.

I. 8. i]

EVIL

p. 93

2.

For the moment let us define the Nature of the Good as far as the immediate purpose demands.

The Good is that on which all else depends, towards which all Existences aspire as to their source and their need, while Itself is without need, sufficient to Itself, aspiring to no other, the measure and Term of all, giving out from itself the Intellectual-Principle and Existence and Soul and Life and all Intellective- Act.

All until The Good is reached is beautiful ; The Good is beyondbeautiful, beyond the Highest, holding kingly state in the Intellectual- Kosmos, that sphere constituted by a Principle wholly unlike what is known as Intelligence in us. Our intelligence is nourished on the propositions of logic, is skilled in following discussions, works by reasonings, examines links of demonstration, and comes to know the world of Being also by the steps of logical process, having no prior grasp of Reality but remaining empty, all Intelligence though it be, until it has put itself to school.

discussions, works by reasonings, examines links of demonstration, and comes to know the world of Being also by the steps of logical process, having no prior grasp of Reality but remaining empty, all Intelligence though it be, until it has put itself to school.

The Intellectual-Principle we are discussing is not of such a kind : It possesses all : It is all : It is present to all by Its self-presence : It has all by other means than having, for what It possesses is still Itself, nor does any particular of aU within It stand apart ; for every such particular is the whole and in all respects all, while yet not confused in the mass but still distinct, apart to the extent that any participant in the Intellectual-Principle participates not in the entire as one thing but in whatsoever lies within its own reach.

And the First Act is the Act of The Good stationary within Itself, and the First Existence is the self-contained Existence of The Good ; but there is also an Act upon It, that of the Intellectual-Principle which, as it were, lives about It.

And the Soul, outside, circles around the Intellectual-Principle, and by gazing upon it, seeing into the depths of It, through It sees God.

Such is the untroubled, the blissful, life of divine beings, and Evil has no place in it ; if this were all, there would be no Evil but Good only, the first, the second and the third Good. All, thus far, is with the King

p. 94

PLOTINUS

of All, unfailing Cause of Good and Beauty and controller of all ; and what is Good in the second degree depends upon the Second-Principle and tertiary Good upon the Third.

3-

If such be the Nature of Beings and of That which transcends all the realm of Being, Evil cannot have place among Beings or in the Beyond-Being ; these are good.

There remains, only, if Evil exist at all, that it be situate in the realm of Non-Being, that it be some mode, as it were, of the Non-Being, that it have its seat in something in touch with Non-Being or to a certain degree communicate in Non-Being.

By this Non-Being, of course, we are not to understand something that simply does not exist, but only something of an utterly different order from Authentic-Being : there is no question here of movement or position with regard to Being ; the Non-Being we are thinking of is, rather, an image of Being or perhaps something still further removed than even an image.

something of an utterly different order from Authentic-Being : there is no question here of movement or position with regard to Being ; the Non-Being we are thinking of is, rather, an image of Being or perhaps something still further removed than even an image.

Now this (the required faint image of Being) might be the sensible universe with all the impressions it engenders, or it might be something of even later derivation, accidental to the realm of sense, or again, it might be the source of the sense-world or something of the same order entering into it to complete it.

Some conception of it would be reached by thinking of measurelessness as opposed to measure, of the unbounded against bound, the unshaped against a principle of shape, the ever-needy against the self-sufficing : think of the ever-undefined, the never at rest, the all-accepting but never sated, utter dearth ; and make all this character not mere accident in it but its equivalent for essential-being, so that, whatsoever fragment of it be taken, that part is all lawless void, while whatever participates in it and resembles it becomes evil, though not of course to the point of being, as itself is. Evil- Absolute.

In what substantial-form (hypostasis) then is all this to be found — not as accident but as the very substance itself ?

1. 8.4]

EVIL

p. 95

For if Evil can enter into other things, it must have in a certain sense a prior existence, even though it may not be an essence. As there is Good, the Absolute, as well as Good, the quality, so, together with the derived evil entering into something not itself, there must be the Absolute Evil.

But how ? Can there be Unmeasure apart from an unmeasured object ?

Does not Measure exist apart from unmeasured things ? Precisely as there is Measure apart from anything measured, so there is Unmeasure apart from the unmeasured. If Unmeasure could not exist independently, it must exist either in an unmeasured object or in something measured ; but the unmeasured could not need Unmeasure and the measured could not contain it.

There must, then, be some Undetermination-Absolute, some Absolute Formlessness ; all the qualities cited as characterising the Nature of Evil must be summed under an Absolute Evil ; and every evil thing outside of this must either contain this Absolute by saturation or have taken the character of evil and become a cause of evil by consecration to this Absolute.