Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4 / In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

by Plotinus

EXISTENCE OF EVIL IS NECESSARY AS LAST MATERIAL DEGREE OF BEING.

Here follows still another demonstration of the necessity of evil. Since good does not remain alone, evil must necessarily exist by issuing from the good.[183] We might express this differently, as the degradation and exhaustion (of the divine power, which, in the whole hierarchic series of successive emanations weakens from degree to degree). There must, therefore, be a last degree of being, beyond which nothing further can be begotten, and that is evil. Just as the existence of something after a first (Good) is necessary, so must also a last degree (of being) be necessary. Now the last degree is matter, and contains nothing more of the First; (and, as matter and evil are identical,) the existence of evil is necessary.