[485] Ibid., 5, p. 162, A (Kirchh., I., p. 114, l. 12).
[486] Ibid., III., ix., 3, p. 358, A (Kirchh., I., p. 128, l. 22).
[487] Enn., III., iv., i.
[488] Enn., II., iv., 15, p. 169, B (Kirchh., I., p. 124, l. 22).
[489] Enn., IV., iii,, 9, p. 379, A (Kirchh., I., p. 244, l. 17). In one of his latest essays (Enn., I., viii., 7) Plotinus for a moment accepts the Platonic theory that evil must necessarily coexist with good as its correlative opposite, but quickly returns to the alternative theory that evil results from the gradual diminution and extinction of good (cp. Zeller, Ph. d. Gr., III., b, p. 549).
[490] Enn., III., viii., 4 and 8.
[491] Our own word ‘paragon’ is a curious record of the theory in question. It is derived from the Greek participial substantive ὁ παράγων, the producer. Now, according to Neo-Platonism, in the hierarchic series of existences, the product always strives, or should strive, to model itself on the producer, hence παράγων came to be used in the double sense of a cause and an exemplar. As such, it is one of the technical terms employed throughout the Institutiones Theologicae of Proclus. But, in time, the second or derivative meaning became so much the more important as to gain exclusive possession of the word on its adoption into modern languages.
[492] Enn., III., iv., 2.
[493] Enn., I., ii., 1.
[494] Ibid., 3.