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

by Plotinus

RESPONSIBILITY CANNOT BE SHIFTED FROM REASON WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE.

It does not suffice here to answer:[63] "Everything is for the best possible. Matter is the cause that things are in a state of inferiority; evils could not be destroyed." It is true enough, indeed, that things had to be what they are, for they are good. It is not matter which has come to dominate the universe; it has been introduced in it so that the universe might be what it is, or rather, it is caused by reason (?). The principle of things is, therefore, the Logos, or Reason[64] (of the universe), which is everything. By it were things begotten, by it were they co-ordinated in generation.