Enneads I 8: On the Nature and Source of Evil

[sdi]

I 8: On the Nature and Source of Evil

Evil is the negation of all that is Good. But Good has Form, has Life, has Beauty, has Being; and so evil must be formless, lifeless, without beauty, without existence. But we see evil all around us, so it must exist—but this demonstrates that evil is not an essential thing, as the Good is; there is no Ultimate Evil in the same way that there is an Ultimate Good. Evil is like darkness, which isn't a quality that exists on its own, but rather is the absence of light. We say that evil "increases" with distance to the Good, but really it is merely that the inherent Good is diminished.

It is not possible for the soul, which is essentially Good, to have evil anywhere within it. Therefore it is not possible for a man, which cannot exist without the soul, to be wholly evil: evil to a man is to sink, as far as is possible, into the body, and so be as distant as possible from its source of Good. And so we call Matter evil, not because it is essentially evil but because it is the reason for a man to act in ways contrary to the soul.

In the same way that we say virtue is not Good but a path toward the Good, mere vice is not evil but a path toward evil; for even in vice, there is a trace of Good: one undertakes vice because he believes that it will do some Good to him.

I have often said, in comments on this diary and elsewhere, that I do not think evil exists; Plotinus explicitly describes what I mean when I say so right at the end of the tractate:

Evil is not alone: by virtue of the nature of Good, the power of Good, it is not Evil only: it appears, necessarily, bound around with bonds of Beauty, like some captive bound in fetters of gold; and beneath these it is hidden so that, while it must exist, it may not be seen by the gods, and that men need not always have evil before their eyes, but that when it comes before them they may still be not destitute of Images of the Good and Beautiful for their Remembrance.