Enneads VI.7: How Ideas Multiplied, and the Good
Matter Is Not Wickedness, but Neutral Evil
All we have said above goes on the assumption that matter is the evil. But if it were something else, as, for instance, malice, and if the essence of matter were to receive sensation, would intimacy with what is better still be the good of matter? But if it were not the malice itself of matter which choose the good, it was what had become evil in matter. If the essence (of matter) were identical with evil, how could matter wish to possess this good? Would evil love itself, if it had self-consciousness? But how could that which is not lovable be loved? For we have demonstrated that a being’s good does not consist in that which is suitable to it. Enough about this, however.
THE GOOD IS A NATURE WHICH POSSESSES NO KIND OF FORM ITSELF.
But if the good be everywhere a form; if, in the measure that one rises (along the ladder of beings), there is a progression in the form—for the soul is more of a form than the form of the body; in the soul herself there are graduated forms, and intelligence is more of a form than the soul—the good follows a progression evidently inverse to that of matter; the Good exists in that which is purified and freed from matter, and exists there in proportion to its purity (from matter); so it exists in the highest degree in that which lays aside all materiality. Finally, the Good in itself, being entirely separated from all matter; or rather, never having had any contact with it, constitutes a nature which has no kind of form, and from which proceeds the first form (Intelligence). But of this more later.
THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE GOOD FROM PLEASURE PROVED BY THE TEMPERATE MAN.
29Supposing then that the pleasure does not accompany the good, but that anterior to pleasure there have existed something which would have naturally given rise to it (because of its goodness); why then might not the good be considered lovable? But the mere assertion that good is lovable, already implies that it is accompanied by pleasure. But supposing now that the good could exist without being lovable (and consequently not accompanied by pleasure). In that case, even in presence of the good, the being that possesses sensibility will not know that the good is present. What would however hinder a being from knowing the presence of the good without feeling any emotion at its possession, which would exactly represent the case of the temperate man who lacks nothing? The result would be that pleasure could not be suitable to the First (being), not only because He is simple, but also because pleasure results from the acquisition of what is lacking (and the First lacks nothing, therefore could not feel pleasure).