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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-1",
    "name": "Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 8,
    "slug": "8-on-the-nature-and-source-of-evil",
    "title": "I.8 — On the Nature and Source of Evil",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 6086,
    "text": "## EIGHTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### EIGHTH TRACTATE.\n\nON THE NATURE AND SOURCE OF EVIL.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Those enquiring whence Evil enters into beings, or rather\ninto a certain order of beings, would be making the best beginning\nif they established, first of all, what precisely Evil is, what\nconstitutes its Nature. At once we should know whence it comes,\nwhere it has its native seat and where it is present merely as an\naccident; and there would be no further question as to whether it\nhas Authentic-Existence.\n\nBut a difficulty arises. By what faculty in us could we possibly\nknow Evil?\n\nAll knowing comes by likeness. The Intellectual-Principle and\nthe Soul, being Ideal-Forms, would know Ideal-Forms and would have a\nnatural tendency towards them; but who could imagine Evil to be an\nIdeal-Form, seeing that it manifests itself as the very absence of\nGood?\n\nIf the solution is that the one act of knowing covers\ncontraries, and that as Evil is the contrary to Good the one\nact would\ngrasp Good and Evil together, then to know Evil there must be first\na clear perception and understanding of Good, since the nobler\nexistences precede the baser and are Ideal-Forms while the less good\nhold no such standing, are nearer to Non-Being.\n\nNo doubt there is a question in what precise way Good is\ncontrary to Evil- whether it is as First-Principle to last of things\nor as Ideal-Form to utter Lack: but this subject we postpone.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. For the moment let us define the nature of the Good as far as\nthe immediate purpose demands.\n\nThe Good is that on which all else depends, towards which all\nExistences aspire as to their source and their need, while Itself is\nwithout need, sufficient to Itself, aspiring to no other, the\nmeasure and Term of all, giving out from itself the\nIntellectual-Principle and Existence and Soul and Life and all\nIntellective-Act.\n\nAll until The Good is reached is beautiful; The Good is\nbeyond-beautiful, beyond the Highest, holding kingly state in the\nIntellectual-Kosmos, that sphere constituted by a Principle wholly\nunlike what is known as Intelligence in us. Our intelligence is\nnourished on the propositions of logic, is skilled in following\ndiscussions, works by reasonings, examines links of\ndemonstration, and\ncomes to know the world of Being also by the steps of\nlogical process,\nhaving no prior grasp of Reality but remaining empty, all\nIntelligence\nthough it be, until it has put itself to school.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle we are discussing is not of such a\nkind: It possesses all: It is all: It is present to all by Its\nself-presence: It has all by other means than having, for what It\npossesses is still Itself, nor does any particular of all within It\nstand apart; for every such particular is the whole and in all\nrespects all, while yet not confused in the mass but still distinct,\napart to the extent that any participant in the\nIntellectual-Principle\nparticipates not in the entire as one thing but in whatsoever lies\nwithin its own reach.\n\nAnd the First Act is the Act of The Good stationary\nwithin Itself,\nand the First Existence is the self-contained Existence of The Good;\nbut there is also an Act upon It, that of the Intellectual-Principle\nwhich, as it were, lives about It.\n\nAnd the Soul, outside, circles around the\nIntellectual-Principle, and by gazing upon it, seeing into the\ndepths of It, through It sees God.\n\nSuch is the untroubled, the blissful, life of divine beings, and\nEvil has no place in it; if this were all, there would be no Evil\nbut Good only, the first, the second and the third Good. All, thus\nfar, is with the King of All, unfailing Cause of Good and Beauty and\ncontroller of all; and what is Good in the second degree depends\nupon the Second-Principle and tertiary Good upon the Third.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. If such be the Nature of Beings and of That which transcends\nall the realm of Being, Evil cannot have place among Beings or in\nthe Beyond-Being; these are good.\n\nThere remains, only, if Evil exist at all, that it be situate in\nthe realm of Non-Being, that it be some mode, as it were, of the\nNon-Being, that it have its seat in something in touch with\nNon-Being or to a certain degree communicate in Non-Being.\n\nBy this Non-Being, of course, we are not to understand something\nthat simply does not exist, but only something of an utterly\ndifferent\norder from Authentic-Being: there is no question here of movement or\nposition with regard to Being; the Non-Being we are thinking of is,\nrather, an image of Being or perhaps something still further removed\nthan even an image.\n\nNow this [the required faint image of Being] might be\nthe sensible\nuniverse with all the impressions it engenders, or it might be\nsomething of even later derivation, accidental to the realm of\nsense, or again, it might be the source of the sense-world or\nsomething of the same order entering into it to complete it.\n\nSome conception of it would be reached by thinking of\nmeasurelessness as opposed to measure, of the unbounded\nagainst bound,\nthe unshaped against a principle of shape, the ever-needy against\nthe self-sufficing: think of the ever-undefined, the never at rest,\nthe all-accepting but never sated, utter dearth; and make all this\ncharacter not mere accident in it but its equivalent for\nessential-being, so that, whatsoever fragment of it be taken, that\npart is all lawless void, while whatever participates in it and\nresembles it becomes evil, though not of course to the point\nof being,\nas itself is, Evil-Absolute.\n\nIn what substantial-form [hypostasis] then is all this to be\nfound- not as accident but as the very substance itself?\n\nFor if Evil can enter into other things, it must have in\na certain\nsense a prior existence, even though it may not be an essence. As\nthere is Good, the Absolute, as well as Good, the quality, so,\ntogether with the derived evil entering into something not itself,\nthere must be the Absolute Evil.\n\nBut how? Can there be Unmeasure apart from an unmeasured object?\n\nDoes not Measure exist apart from unmeasured things? Precisely\nas there is Measure apart from anything measured, so there is\nUnmeasure apart from the unmeasured. If Unmeasure could not exist\nindependently, it must exist either in an unmeasured object or in\nsomething measured; but the unmeasured could not need Unmeasure and\nthe measured could not contain it.\n\nThere must, then, be some Undetermination-Absolute, some\nAbsolute Formlessness; all the qualities cited as characterizing the\nNature of Evil must be summed under an Absolute Evil; and every evil\nthing outside of this must either contain this Absolute by\nsaturation or have taken the character of evil and become a cause of\nevil by consecration to this Absolute.\n\nWhat will this be?\n\nThat Kind whose place is below all the patterns, forms, shapes,\nmeasurements and limits, that which has no trace of good by any\ntitle of its own, but [at best] takes order and grace from some\nPrinciple outside itself, a mere image as regards Absolute-Being but\nthe Authentic Essence of Evil- in so far as Evil can have Authentic\nBeing. In such a Kind, Reason recognizes the Primal Evil, Evil\nAbsolute.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. The bodily Kind, in that it partakes of Matter is an evil\nthing. What form is in bodies is an untrue-form: they are without\nlife: by their own natural disorderly movement they make away with\neach other; they are hindrances to the soul in its proper Act; in\ntheir ceaseless flux they are always slipping away from Being.\n\nSoul, on the contrary, since not every Soul is evil, is not an\nevil Kind.\n\nWhat, then, is the evil Soul?\n\nIt is, we read, the Soul that has entered into the\nservice of that\nin which soul-evil is implanted by nature, in whose service the\nunreasoning phase of the Soul accepts evil- unmeasure, excess and\nshortcoming, which bring forth licentiousness, cowardice and\nall other\nflaws of the Soul, all the states, foreign to the true nature, which\nset up false judgements, so that the Soul comes to name\nthings good or\nevil not by their true value but by the mere test of like\nand dislike.\n\nBut what is the root of this evil state? how can it be brought\nunder the causing principle indicated?\n\nFirstly, such a Soul is not apart from Matter, is not purely\nitself. That is to say, it is touched with Unmeasure, it is shut out\nfrom the Forming-Idea that orders and brings to measure, and this\nbecause it is merged into a body made of Matter.\n\nThen if the Reasoning-Faculty too has taken hurt, the Soul's\nseeing is baulked by the passions and by the darkening that Matter\nbrings to it, by its decline into Matter, by its very attention no\nlonger to Essence but to Process- whose principle or source\nis, again,\nMatter, the Kind so evil as to saturate with its own pravity even\nthat which is not in it but merely looks towards it.\n\nFor, wholly without part in Good, the negation of Good,\nunmingled Lack, this Matter-Kind makes over to its own likeness\nwhatsoever comes in touch with it.\n\nThe Soul wrought to perfection, addressed towards the\nIntellectual-Principle, is steadfastly pure: it has turned away from\nMatter; all that is undetermined, that is outside of measure, that\nis evil, it neither sees nor draws near; it endures in its purity,\nonly, and wholly, determined by the Intellectual-Principle.\n\nThe Soul that breaks away from this source of its reality to the\nnon-perfect and non-primal is, as it were, a secondary, an image, to\nthe loyal Soul. By its falling-away- and to the extent of\nthe fall- it\nis stripped of Determination, becomes wholly indeterminate, sees\ndarkness. Looking to what repels vision, as we look when we are said\nto see darkness, it has taken Matter into itself.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. But, it will be objected, if this seeing and\nfrequenting of the\ndarkness is due to the lack of good, the Soul's evil has its\nsource in\nthat very lack; the darkness will be merely a secondary cause- and\nat once the Principle of Evil is removed from Matter, is\nmade anterior\nto Matter.\n\nNo: Evil is not in any and every lack; it is in absolute lack.\nWhat falls in some degree short of the Good is not Evil;\nconsidered in\nits own kind it might even be perfect, but where there is utter\ndearth, there we have Essential Evil, void of all share in Good;\nthis is the case with Matter.\n\nMatter has not even existence whereby to have some part in Good:\nBeing is attributed to it by an accident of words: the truth would\nbe that it has Non-Being.\n\nMere lack brings merely Not-Goodness: Evil demands the absolute\nlack- though, of course, any very considerable shortcoming makes the\nultimate fall possible and is already, in itself, an evil.\n\nIn fine we are not to think of Evil as some particular bad\nthing- injustice, for example, or any other ugly trait- but as a\nprinciple distinct from any of the particular forms in which, by the\naddition of certain elements, it becomes manifest. Thus there may be\nwickedness in the Soul; the forms this general wickedness is to take\nwill be determined by the environing Matter, by the faculties of the\nSoul that operate and by the nature of their operation, whether\nseeing, acting, or merely admitting impression.\n\nBut supposing things external to the Soul are to be counted\nEvil- sickness, poverty and so forth- how can they be referred to\nthe principle we have described?\n\nWell, sickness is excess or defect in the body, which as a\nmaterial organism rebels against order and measure; ugliness is but\nmatter not mastered by Ideal-Form; poverty consists in our need and\nlack of goods made necessary to us by our association with Matter\nwhose very nature is to be one long want.\n\nIf all this be true, we cannot be, ourselves, the source of\nEvil, we are not evil in ourselves; Evil was before we came\nto be; the\nEvil which holds men down binds them against their will; and\nfor those\nthat have the strength- not found in all men, it is true- there is a\ndeliverance from the evils that have found lodgement in the soul.\n\nIn a word since Matter belongs only to the sensible\nworld, vice in\nmen is not the Absolute Evil; not all men are vicious; some overcome\nvice, some, the better sort, are never attacked by it; and those who\nmaster it win by means of that in them which is not material.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. If this be so, how do we explain the teaching that evils can\nnever pass away but \"exist of necessity,\" that \"while evil has no\nplace in the divine order, it haunts mortal nature and this place\nfor ever\"?\n\nDoes this mean that heaven is clear of evil, ever moving its\norderly way, spinning on the appointed path, no injustice\nThere or any\nflaw, no wrong done by any power to any other but all true to the\nsettled plan, while injustice and disorder prevail on earth,\ndesignated as \"the Mortal Kind and this Place\"?\n\nNot quite so: for the precept to \"flee hence\" does not refer to\nearth and earthly life. The flight we read of consists not\nin quitting\nearth but in living our earth-life \"with justice and piety in the\nlight of philosophy\"; it is vice we are to flee, so that clearly to\nthe writer Evil is simply vice with the sequels of vice. And when\nthe disputant in that dialogue says that, if men could be\nconvinced of\nthe doctrine advanced, there would be an end of Evil, he is\nanswered, \"That can never be: Evil is of necessity, for there must\nbe a contrary to good.\"\n\nStill we may reasonably ask how can vice in man be a contrary to\nThe Good in the Supernal: for vice is the contrary to virtue and\nvirtue is not The Good but merely the good thing by which Matter is\nbrought to order.\n\nHow can there any contrary to the Absolute Good, when\nthe absolute\nhas no quality?\n\nBesides, is there any universal necessity that the existence of\none of two contraries should entail the existence of the other?\nAdmit that the existence of one is often accompanied by the\nexistence of the other- sickness and health, for example-\nyet there is\nno universal compulsion.\n\nPerhaps, however, our author did not mean that this was\nuniversally true; he is speaking only of The Good.\n\nBut then, if The Good is an essence, and still more, if\nIt is that\nwhich transcends all existence, how can It have any contrary?\n\nThat there is nothing contrary to essence is certain in the case\nof particular existences- established by practical proof- but not in\nthe quite different case of the Universal.\n\nBut of what nature would this contrary be, the contrary to\nuniversal existence and in general to the Primals?\n\nTo essential existence would be opposed the non-existence; to\nthe nature of Good, some principle and source of evil. Both\nthese will\nbe sources, the one of what is good, the other of what is evil; and\nall within the domain of the one principle is opposed, as\ncontrary, to\nthe entire domain of the other, and this in a contrariety\nmore violent\nthan any existing between secondary things.\n\nFor these last are opposed as members of one species or of one\ngenus, and, within that common ground, they participate in\nsome common\nquality.\n\nIn the case of the Primals or Universals there is such complete\nseparation that what is the exact negation of one group constitutes\nthe very nature of the other; we have diametric contrariety if by\ncontrariety we mean the extreme of remoteness.\n\nNow to the content of the divine order, the fixed quality, the\nmeasuredness and so forth- there is opposed the content of the evil\nprinciple, its unfixedness, measurelessness and so forth: total is\nopposed to total. The existence of the one genus is a falsity,\nprimarily, essentially, a falseness: the other genus has\nEssence-Authentic: the opposition is of truth to lie; essence is\nopposed to essence.\n\nThus we see that it is not universally true that an Essence can\nhave no contrary.\n\nIn the case of fire and water we would admit contrariety if it\nwere not for their common element, the Matter, about which are\ngathered the warmth and dryness of one and the dampness and cold of\nthe other: if there were only present what constitutes their\ndistinct kinds, the common ground being absent, there would be, here\nalso, essence contrary to essence.\n\nIn sum, things utterly sundered, having nothing in common,\nstanding at the remotest poles, are opposites in nature: the\ncontrariety does not depend upon quality or upon the existence of a\ndistinct genus of beings, but upon the utmost difference, clash in\ncontent, clash in effect.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. But why does the existence of the Principle of Good\nnecessarily\ncomport the existence of a Principle of Evil? Is it because the All\nnecessarily comports the existence of Matter? Yes: for necessarily\nthis All is made up of contraries: it could not exist if Matter did\nnot. The Nature of this Kosmos is, therefore, a blend; it is blended\nfrom the Intellectual-Principle and Necessity: what comes\ninto it from\nGod is good; evil is from the Ancient Kind which, we read, is the\nunderlying Matter not yet brought to order by the Ideal-Form.\n\nBut, since the expression \"this place\" must be taken to mean the\nAll, how explain the words \"mortal nature\"?\n\nThe answer is in the passage [in which the Father of Gods\naddresses the Divinities of the lower sphere], \"Since you\npossess only\na derivative being, you are not immortals... but by my power\nyou shall\nescape dissolution.\"\n\nThe escape, we read, is not a matter of place, but of acquiring\nvirtue, of disengaging the self from the body; this is the\nescape from\nMatter. Plato explains somewhere how a man frees himself and how he\nremains bound; and the phrase \"to live among the gods\" means to live\namong the Intelligible-Existents, for these are the Immortals.\n\nThere is another consideration establishing the necessary\nexistence of Evil.\n\nGiven that The Good is not the only existent thing, it is\ninevitable that, by the outgoing from it or, if the phrase be\npreferred, the continuous down-going or away-going from it, there\nshould be produced a Last, something after which nothing more can be\nproduced: this will be Evil.\n\nAs necessarily as there is Something after the First, so\nnecessarily there is a Last: this Last is Matter, the thing which\nhas no residue of good in it: here is the necessity of Evil.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. But there will still be some to deny that it is through this\nMatter that we ourselves become evil.\n\nThey will say that neither ignorance nor wicked desires arise in\nMatter. Even if they admit that the unhappy condition within\nus is due\nto the pravity inherent in body, they will urge that still the\nblame lies not in the Matter itself but with the Form present in it-\nsuch Form as heat, cold, bitterness, saltness and all other\nconditions\nperceptible to sense, or again such states as being full or void-\nnot in the concrete signification but in the presence or absence of\njust such forms. In a word, they will argue, all particularity in\ndesires and even in perverted judgements upon things, can be\nreferred to such causes, so that Evil lies in this Form much\nmore than\nin the mere Matter.\n\nYet, even with all this, they can be compelled to admit that\nMatter is the Evil.\n\nFor, the quality [form] that has entered into Matter does not\nact as an entity apart from the Matter, any more than axe-shape will\ncut apart from iron. Further, Forms lodged in Matter are not the\nsame as they would be if they remained within themselves; they are\nReason-Principles Materialized, they are corrupted in the\nMatter, they\nhave absorbed its nature: essential fire does not burn, nor do any\nof the essential entities effect, of themselves alone, the operation\nwhich, once they have entered into Matter, is traced to their action.\n\nMatter becomes mistress of what is manifested through it: it\ncorrupts and destroys the incomer, it substitutes its own opposite\ncharacter and kind, not in the sense of opposing, for example,\nconcrete cold to concrete warmth, but by setting its own\nformlessness against the Form of heat, shapelessness to shape,\nexcess and defect to the duly ordered. Thus, in sum, what enters\ninto Matter ceases to belong to itself, comes to belong to Matter,\njust as, in the nourishment of living beings, what is taken in does\nnot remain as it came, but is turned into, say, dog's blood and all\nthat goes to make a dog, becomes, in fact, any of the humours of any\nrecipient.\n\nNo, if body is the cause of Evil, then there is no escape; the\ncause of Evil is Matter.\n\nStill, it will be urged, the incoming Idea should have been able\nto conquer the Matter.\n\nThe difficulty is that Matter's master cannot remain pure itself\nexcept by avoidance of Matter.\n\nBesides, the constitution determines both the desires and their\nviolence so that there are bodies in which the incoming idea cannot\nhold sway: there is a vicious constitution which chills and clogs\nthe activity and inhibits choice; a contrary bodily habit produces\nfrivolity, lack of balance. The same fact is indicated by our\nsuccessive variations of mood: in times of stress, we are\nnot the same\neither in desires or in ideas- as when we are at peace, and we\ndiffer again with every several object that brings us satisfaction.\n\nTo resume: the Measureless is evil primarily; whatever, either\nby resemblance or participation, exists in the state of unmeasure,\nis evil secondarily, by force of its dealing with the Primal-\nprimarily, the darkness; secondarily, the darkened. Now, Vice, being\nan ignorance and a lack of measure in the Soul, is secondarily evil,\nnot the Essential Evil, just as Virtue is not the Primal Good but is\nLikeness to The Good, or participation in it.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. But what approach have we to the knowing of Good and Evil?\n\nAnd first of the Evil of soul: Virtue, we may know by the\nIntellectual-Principle and by means of the philosophic habit; but\nVice?\n\nA a ruler marks off straight from crooked, so Vice is\nknown by its\ndivergence from the line of Virtue.\n\nBut are we able to affirm Vice by any vision we can have\nof it, or\nis there some other way of knowing it?\n\nUtter viciousness, certainly not by any vision, for it is\nutterly outside of bound and measure; this thing which is nowhere\ncan be seized only by abstraction; but any degree of evil falling\nshort of The Absolute is knowable by the extent of that\nfalling short.\n\nWe see partial wrong; from what is before us we divine that\nwhich is lacking to the entire form [or Kind] thus indicated; we see\nthat the completed Kind would be the Indeterminate; by this\nprocess we\nare able to identify and affirm Evil. In the same way when we\nobserve what we feel to be an ugly appearance in Matter- left there\nbecause the Reason-Principle has not become so completely the master\nas to cover over the unseemliness- we recognise Ugliness by the\nfalling-short from Ideal-Form.\n\nBut how can we identify what has never had any touch of Form?\n\nWe utterly eliminate every kind of Form; and the object in which\nthere is none whatever we call Matter: if we are to see\nMatter we must\nso completely abolish Form that we take shapelessness into our very\nselves.\n\nIn fact it is another Intellectual-Principle, not the true, this\nwhich ventures a vision so uncongenial.\n\nTo see darkness the eye withdraws from the light; it is striving\nto cease from seeing, therefore it abandons the light which\nwould make\nthe darkness invisible; away from the light its power is rather that\nof not-seeing than of seeing and this not-seeing is its nearest\napproach to seeing Darkness. So the Intellectual-Principle, in order\nto see its contrary [Matter], must leave its own light locked up\nwithin itself, and as it were go forth from itself into an outside\nrealm, it must ignore its native brightness and submit itself to the\nvery contradition of its being.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. But if Matter is devoid of quality how can it be evil?\n\nIt is described as being devoid of quality in the sense only\nthat it does not essentially possess any of the qualities which it\nadmits and which enter into it as into a substratum. No one says\nthat it has no nature; and if it has any nature at all, why may not\nthat nature be evil though not in the sense of quality?\n\nQuality qualifies something not itself: it is therefore an\naccidental; it resides in some other object. Matter does not exist\nin some other object but is the substratum in which the accidental\nresides. Matter, then, is said to be devoid of Quality in\nthat it does\nnot in itself possess this thing which is by nature an\naccidental. If,\nmoreover, Quality itself be devoid of Quality, how can Matter, which\nis the unqualified, be said to have it?\n\nThus, it is quite correct to say at once that Matter is without\nQuality and that it is evil: it is Evil not in the sense of having\nQuality but, precisely, in not having it; give it Quality and in its\nvery Evil it would almost be a Form, whereas in Truth it is a Kind\ncontrary to Form.\n\n\"But,\" it may be said, \"the Kind opposed to all Form is\nPrivation or Negation, and this necessarily refers to something\nother than itself, it is no Substantial-Existence: therefore if Evil\nis Privation or Negation it must be lodged in some Negation of Form:\nthere will be no Self-Existent Evil.\"\n\nThis objection may be answered by applying the principle to the\ncase of Evil in the Soul; the Evil, the Vice, will be a Negation and\nnot anything having a separate existence; we come to the doctrine\nwhich denies Matter or, admitting it, denies its Evil; we need not\nseek elsewhere; we may at once place Evil in the Soul, recognising\nit as the mere absence of Good. But if the negation is the\nnegation of\nsomething that ought to become present, if it is a denial of the\nGood by the Soul, then the Soul produces vice within itself by the\noperation of its own Nature, and is devoid of good and, therefore,\nSoul though it be, devoid of life: the Soul, if it has no life, is\nsoulless; the Soul is no Soul.\n\nNo; the Soul has life by its own nature and therefore\ndoes not, of\nits own nature, contain this negation of The Good: it has\nmuch good in\nit; it carries a happy trace of the Intellectual-Principle and is\nnot essentially evil: neither is it primally evil nor is that\nPrimal Evil present in it even as an accidental, for the Soul is not\nwholly apart from the Good.\n\nPerhaps Vice and Evil as in the Soul should be described\nnot as an\nentire, but as a partial, negation of good.\n\nBut if this were so, part of the Soul must possess The Good,\npart be without it; the Soul will have a mingled nature and the Evil\nwithin it will not be unblended: we have not yet lighted on the\nPrimal, Unmingled Evil. The Soul would possess the Good as its\nEssence, the Evil as an Accidental.\n\nPerhaps Evil is merely an impediment to the Soul like something\naffecting the eye and so hindering sight.\n\nBut such an evil in the eyes is no more than an occasion of\nevil, the Absolute Evil is something quite different. If then Vice\nis an impediment to the Soul, Vice is an occasion of evil but not\nEvil-Absolute. Virtue is not the Absolute Good, but a\nco-operator with\nit; and if Virtue is not the Absolute Good neither is Vice the\nAbsolute Evil. Virtue is not the Absolute Beauty or the\nAbsolute Good;\nneither, therefore, is Vice the Essential Ugliness or the Essential\nEvil.\n\nWe teach that Virtue is not the Absolute Good and Beauty,\nbecause we know that These are earlier than Virtue and transcend it,\nand that it is good and beautiful by some participation in them. Now\nas, going upward from virtue, we come to the Beautiful and to the\nGood, so, going downward from Vice, we reach Essential Evil:\nfrom Vice\nas the starting-point we come to vision of Evil, as far as\nsuch vision\nis possible, and we become evil to the extent of our participation\nin it. We are become dwellers in the Place of Unlikeness, where,\nfallen from all our resemblance to the Divine, we lie in gloom and\nmud: for if the Soul abandons itself unreservedly to the extreme of\nviciousness, it is no longer a vicious Soul merely, for mere vice is\nstill human, still carries some trace of good: it has taken to\nitself another nature, the Evil, and as far as Soul can die it is\ndead. And the death of Soul is twofold: while still sunk in body to\nlie down in Matter and drench itself with it; when it has left the\nbody, to lie in the other world until, somehow, it stirs again and\nlifts its sight from the mud: and this is our \"going down to\nHades and\nslumbering there.\"\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. It may be suggested that Vice is feebleness in the Soul.\n\nWe shall be reminded that the Vicious Soul is unstable, swept\nalong from every ill to every other, quickly stirred by appetites,\nheadlong to anger, as hasty to compromises, yielding at once to\nobscure imaginations, as weak, in fact, as the weakest thing made by\nman or nature, blown about by every breeze, burned away by\nevery heat.\n\nStill the question must be faced what constitutes this\nweakness in\nthe Soul, whence it comes.\n\nFor weakness in the body is not like that in the Soul: the word\nweakness, which covers the incapacity for work and the lack of\nresistance in the body, is applied to the Soul merely by analogy-\nunless, indeed, in the one case as in the other, the cause of the\nweakness is Matter.\n\nBut we must go more thoroughly into the source of this weakness,\nas we call it, in the Soul, which is certainly not made weak as the\nresult of any density or rarity, or by any thickening or thinning or\nanything like a disease, like a fever.\n\nNow this weakness must be seated either in Souls utterly\ndisengaged or in Souls bound to Matter or in both.\n\nIt cannot exist in those apart from Matter, for all\nthese are pure\nand, as we read, winged and perfect and unimpeded in their\ntask: there\nremains only that the weakness be in the fallen Souls, neither\ncleansed nor clean; and in them the weakness will be, not in any\nprivation but in some hostile presence, like that of phlegm\nor bile in\nthe organs of the body.\n\nIf we form an acute and accurate notion of the cause of the fall\nwe shall understand the weakness that comes by it.\n\nMatter exists; Soul exists; and they occupy, so to speak, one\nplace. There is not one place for Matter and another for\nSoul-Matter, for instance, kept to earth, Soul in the air: the\nsoul's \"separate place\" is simply its not being in Matter; that is,\nits not being united with it; that is that there be no compound unit\nconsisting of Soul and Matter; that is that Soul be not moulded in\nMatter as in a matrix; this is the Soul's apartness.\n\nBut the faculties of the Soul are many, and it has its\nbeginning, its intermediate phases, its final fringe. Matter\nappears, importunes, raises disorders, seeks to force its way\nwithin; but all the ground is holy, nothing there without part in\nSoul. Matter therefore submits, and takes light: but the\nsource of its\nillumination it cannot attain to, for the Soul cannot lift up this\nforeign thing close by, since the evil of it makes it invisible. On\nthe contrary the illumination, the light streaming from the Soul, is\ndulled, is weakened, as it mixes with Matter which offers\nBirth to the\nSoul, providing the means by which it enters into generation,\nimpossible to it if no recipient were at hand.\n\nThis is the fall of the Soul, this entry into Matter: thence its\nweakness: not all the faculties of its being retain free play, for\nMatter hinders their manifestation; it encroaches upon the Soul's\nterritory and, as it were, crushes the Soul back; and it\nturns to evil\nall that it has stolen, until the Soul finds strength to advance\nagain.\n\nThus the cause, at once, of the weakness of Soul and of all its\nevil is Matter.\n\nThe evil of Matter precedes the weakness, the vice; it is Primal\nEvil. Even though the Soul itself submits to Matter and engenders to\nit; if it becomes evil within itself by its commerce with Matter,\nthe cause is still the presence of Matter: the Soul would never have\napproached Matter but that the presence of Matter is the occasion of\nits earth-life.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. If the existence of Matter be denied, the necessity of this\nPrinciple must be demonstrated from the treatises \"On Matter\" where\nthe question is copiously treated.\n\nTo deny Evil a place among realities is necessarily to do away\nwith the Good as well, and even to deny the existence of anything\ndesirable; it is to deny desire, avoidance and all intellectual act;\nfor desire has Good for its object, aversion looks to Evil; all\nintellectual act, all Wisdom, deals with Good and Bad, and is itself\none of the things that are good.\n\nThere must then be The Good- good unmixed- and the Mingled Good\nand Bad, and the Rather Bad than Good, this last ending with the\nUtterly Bad we have been seeking, just as that in which Evil\nconstitutes the lesser part tends, by that lessening, towards the\nGood.\n\nWhat, then, must Evil be to the Soul?\n\nWhat Soul could contain Evil unless by contact with the lower\nKind? There could be no desire, no sorrow, no rage, no fear: fear\ntouches the compounded dreading its dissolution; pain and sorrow are\nthe accompaniments of the dissolution; desires spring from something\ntroubling the grouped being or are a provision against trouble\nthreatened; all impression is the stroke of something unreasonable\noutside the Soul, accepted only because the Soul is not devoid of\nparts or phases; the Soul takes up false notions through having gone\noutside of its own truth by ceasing to be purely itself.\n\nOne desire or appetite there is which does not fall under this\ncondemnation; it is the aspiration towards the\nIntellectual-Principle:\nthis demands only that the Soul dwell alone enshrined within that\nplace of its choice, never lapsing towards the lower.\n\nEvil is not alone: by virtue of the nature of Good, the power of\nGood, it is not Evil only: it appears, necessarily, bound around\nwith bonds of Beauty, like some captive bound in fetters of gold;\nand beneath these it is hidden so that, while it must exist, it may\nnot be seen by the gods, and that men need not always have\nevil before\ntheir eyes, but that when it comes before them they may still be not\ndestitute of Images of the Good and Beautiful for their Remembrance.",
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