Since the Soul herself exists, Love also must necessarily exist, and it owes its existence to the desire of the Soul which aspires to the better and the Good. Love is a mixed being: it participates in need, because it needs satisfaction; it also participates in abundance, because it struggles to acquire good which it yet lacks, inasmuch as only that which lacked good entirely would cease to seek it. It is, therefore, correct to call Love the son of Abundance and Need, which are constituted by lack, desire, and reminiscence of the reasons—or ideas—which, reunited in the soul, have therein engendered that aspiration towards the good which constitutes love. Its mother is Need, because desire belongs only to need, and "need" signifies matter, which is entire need.[155] Even indetermination, which characterizes the desire of the good, makes the being which desires the Good play the part of matter—since such a being would have neither form nor reason, considered only from its desiring. It is a form only inasmuch as it remains within itself. As soon as it desires to attain a new perfection, it is matter relatively to the being from whom it desires to receive somewhat.
LOVE IS BOTH MATERIAL AND A GUARDIAN.
That is why Love is both a being which participates in matter, and is also a Guardian born of the soul; it is the former, inasmuch as it does not completely possess the good; it is the latter, inasmuch as it desires the Good from the very moment of its birth.
[FIRST ENNEAD, BOOK EIGHT.]
Of the Nature and Origin of Evils.[156]
QUESTIONS TO BE DISCUSSED.
1. Studying the origin of evils that might affect all beings in general, or some one class in particular, it is reasonable to begin by defining evil, from a consideration of its nature. That would be the best way to discover whence it arises, where it resides, to whom it may happen, and in general to decide if it be something real. Which one of our faculties then can inform us of the nature of evil? This question is not easy to solve, because there must be an analogy between the knower and the known.[157] The Intelligence and the Soul may indeed cognize forms and fix their desires on them, because they themselves are forms; but evil, which consists in the absence of all goods, could not be described as a form.[158] But inasmuch as there can be but one single science, to embrace even contraries, and as the evil is the contrary of the good, knowledge of the good implies that of evil. Therefore, to determine the nature of evil, we shall first have to determine that of good, for the higher things must precede the lower, as some are forms and others are not, being rather a privation of the good. Just in what sense evil is the contrary of the good must also be determined; as for instance, if the One be the first, and matter the last;[159] or whether the One be form, and matter be its absence. Of this further.[160]