Plotinus on Matter and Evil

Author(s): John M. Rist

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1961), pp. 154-166
Published by: Brill
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Plotinus on Matter and Evil

JOHN M. RIST

IN THE DISCUSSION which followed his paper "Plotin et les Gnostiques",1

M. Puech suggested that the language and thought of Plotinus
concerning matter could be said to have developed. Before the break

with the Gnostics which is revealed in Enneads 3.8, g.8, s,5, and 2.9,
thinks M. Puech, Plotinus conceived of matter as a kind of evil substance,
whereas he later came to regard it as "imaginee comme un miroir". After

questioning, he explained that he inclined to the view that Plotinus had

refornmed the pessimistic dualism that can be found in his earlier treatises,
if not abandoned it altogether, and he was ready to accept the implication
that after the break with the Gnostics, Plotinus tended to abandon the
suggestion that matter is evil.

The two treatises which appear in places to teach most clearly the
inherent evil of matter are Enn. 2.4 and i.8. The former of these is the

twelfth in Porphyry's list of the treatises in chronological order, and

was therefore written between 2S4 and 263 A.D.; the latter is number
fifty-one and was composed almost at the end of Plotinus' life, probably
in 269. The treatises against the Gnostics are numbers thirty to thirtythree in chronological order, all therefore having been written after
265; and those containing expressions suggesting that matter is mere

negativity include 2.6 (I7th in chronological order), 2.5 (25), 3.6 (26)
and 6.3 (44). Enn. 2.4, which, as has already been noticed, appears to
contain the theory of matter as evil, also supports the view of it as
negativity. We can at once conclude, therefore, that Plotinus appears to
have nmaintained the doctrine that nmatter is evil soon after he began to
write and again at the time of his death, and that his break with the
Gnostics did not, at least ultimately, affect his thought on this issue. We
nmay explain this by suggesting that the view of matter as negativity, which

appears along-side the apparently more dualistic view in the early tract
2.4, obtained complete supremacy in Plotinus' min(d for a period when
his opposition to Gnosticism was at its most intense, but if this is so,
(and I do not think it can be proved), then apparently dualist views on
this particular issue returned when the main struggle with Gnosticism
was over.
x H. C. Puech, "Plotin et les Gnostiques," Entretiens Hardt S, Les Sources de Plotin (Geneva
i 960) 1 84.

154

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All this - if true - seems rather confusing, and makes it very difficult
to understand Plotinus' process of thought, let alone the reason for that
process. It would appear then that talk of development in Plotinus'
doctrine of matter does not help very much in understanding him unless
we assume the unlikely hypothesis of a very brief change of view which

was almost immediately reversed. More progress can almost certainly

be made by taking up a few of the statements of Plotinus himself and
attempting to decide whether his apparently contradictory views are in
fact contradictory. I propose therefore to examine what he has to say
about matter and evil, especially in Enneads i.8 and 2.4, and to show that
these tracts are both internally consistent and produce a coherent picture
when placed side by side.

In his Philosophy of Plotinus,' Dean Inge has recognized that the apparent
difficulties in the Plotinian doctrine of matter arise from "the interrelation of the two kinds of judgement - that of existence and that of
value". This observation will serve as the basis of our own enquiry, and
if eventually we find that the "two kinds" have merged again, this is not
to disown Inge's dichotomy, but to stress that it is only a useful guide to
the teaching of Plotinus and would not have been acceptable as more
than that to Plotinus himself.

Just as for Plotinus there are two worlds, the world of particulars and
the world of Forms "yonder", so there are two kinds of matter, one "in

this world" and the other "intelligible"2. Matter here is an image of

intelligible matter which stands to it as an archetype (2.4.S.). As is
normal in the model-copy relationship, the copy is more vague and
indefinite since it is farther away from true Being. Thus in this passage,
although matter in the Intelligible World stands for Indefiniteness

(aicep6c), matter "here" is more indefinite.

Intelligible and sensible matter are both involved with "otherness"

(Vreporrlq). In the case of spiritual Beings, difference is the result of

"otherness" (6.9.8). "Otherness" is present in every reality, except the
One. As Arnou has written3: "II (the One) est autre sans doute, mais

l'alterite c'est dans les autres." All Beings, that is everything associated
with any kind of matter, possess "otherness"; intelligible inatter is
I W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinuss (London 1929) Vol. x, 131 .
2 This dichotomy excludes from the discussion the celestial matter that forms the heavens

above the level of the moon. This matter is eternal and devoid of evil (Enn. 2.1.4.6-13.
CJ. 2.9.8.33-6), since it is, as Plotinus puts it, nxpop Oeoi3, while its sublunary counterpart
is only Trmp& rcov ycvo[i6vcov OcCv (Enn. 2.1.5. Cf. Tim. 69C).
3 R. Arnou, aLa Separation par simple Alteritet dans la 'Trinite' plotinienne," Gregorionum
X (1930) 189.

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"other" than the One, that is than what is "beyond Being", matter "here"
is other than Being (2.4. I 6).

Matter "here", therefore, is not the same as "otherness"; it is a

particular kind of "otherness". It is "otherness" than Being, or "privation"

(artp-qam) of Being. Nevertheless, although it is privation, it is not

Quality or a quality. It is not Quality, but rather a negation of Quality,

and negations of qualities are not for Plotinus to be regarded as qualities

themselves. Noiselessness, he maintains, is not a quality of noise or of

anything else (2.4. 13), rather it is an absence of quality (eplC ).

Quality is always a positive factor ('r 8' 7rowEV eV xocrocypcaeL). Thus, since
matter is without qualities, it is hard to speak of it as other than mere

potentiality without potency. It is qualityless (&ToLoq i .8. i o), non-being

(,u' 6v 2.j.4), only a potentiality of Being (2. .S).

Nevertheless, although without qualities and "other" than Being, matter

has an individual distinction (1L6?-vJ 2.4. I3), which is, of course, not

its shape (for the possession of shape would involve at least a slight

connection with Limit), or its qualities, but simple its relation of "other-

ness" than other things. This "otherness" is its nature (cp6aLq), a nature
which is not essentially qualified but continually admits a flux of changing
qualities. Plotinus finds no difficulty in the idea of entities being un-

qualified, for, he says: "Is not Quality itself unqualified?" (2.4.13). If

this is so - and nobody disputes the existence and "discussability" of
Quality - then the mere absence of qualities does not rule out the potential
"existence" of matter, or prevent its "possessing" a nature.
Inge has suggested 1 that Plotinus' attempt to define matter as without
qualities, yet in possession of a nature implies that in some passages he
"invests Matter with powers of resistance to Form", and that this is
unjustified. If, however, by "resistance" he means anything more that
the non-cooperation of something completely inert, he has been led
farther than is correct in attributing metaphysical as distinct from ethical
dualism to Plotinus, by the latter's use of rhetorical terminology. This will
become apparent from what follows.
Since then matter is seen to possess a nature, it is no great advance to

the concept of its still having some sort of "existence", although it is

"other" than Being. Plotinus here makes use of the work on negation

done by Plato in the Sophist. Plato had found it necessary to begin to

distinguish the kinds of negation. His conclusion was that "not being
some thing" is not the same as absolute non-existence. Thus when we say
that non-being is not "being", we do not mean that it does not exist, but
I W. R. Inge, op. cit. I 34.

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that it is "other" than "being". In this way Plotinus can say that matter
has no "being" (ouRa yocp so etvocL 9X?L 7 ' i.8.g), but rather is
non-being (t elvmoc), and that "non-being" has some kind of existence
in that it is identical with privation (2.4. i 6).

Since matter then has this strange kind of existence, it is recognizable

by a strange kind of reasoning; Plotinus refers to the "bastard reasoning"
of the Timaeus. It is a kind of reasoning which does not originate from
the Mind, but in some illogical way XXoc Xoym,uc& ou'x xx vou, &X?cx

XeV&q 2.4. I 2) which shows the spurious nature of its object. In order
to see matter, says Plotinus (i.8.9), we must make use of a kind of
"counter-mind", a mind totally devoid of all Form and Being. Mind must
leave its own light, go out into an outside realm and suffer "the opposite
of its own nature". Mind must become mindless to recognize what exists
in some sense outside Being.

It is evident that although Plotinus rejects the Aristotelian distinction

between u'XTh and a-e'pYaL5 (2.4.I4), his conception of matter bears a
certain resemblance to that which we can form of the "prime matter"
of Aristotle. For Aristotle, the most fundamental existents in the
sublunary world are the four Empedoclean elements: fire, air, earth and
water. Each element, however, is theoretically divisible into "prime
matter" and two of the "prime contraries". "Prime matter" does not
exist by itself and can be regarded as analogous to Plotinian matter.
We can say that it does not exist, and yet that it is not a complete
non-entity.

Matter then for Plotinus is the formless, indeterminate substratum of

things (2.4.6). It is compared with a mirror (3.6.13), but has not the
"real" existence that a mirror has over and above the appearances in it.
The qualities of bodies that appear in it only enter it "falsely into falsity"

(+eua eq + uaoq). It is not visible like a mirror, and must not be

thought of as an object in the way that a mirror is an object. The mirror
is an analogy only so far as it too is the "receptacle" in which images
appear.

In the early treatise 4.8, Plotinus mentions two theories current among
the Platonists concerning the origin of matter. Either matter has always
existed, or its generation is the necessary consequence of its causes which

were "before" it (4.8.6). The 7tpo omueq here certainly refers to the
temporal creation of matter as opposed to its eternal existenice. It is
quite certain that Plotinus' final view is that matter exists eternally and
is not in any sense a temporal creation, and it is highly probable that his
support, even at this comparatively early date, was given to this view.
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Nevertheless, as a teacher in the Platonic tradition, it plainly suited hinm

very well to mention both views, if such a general difference of opinion
did not affect the specific teaching he was trying to illustrate, namely that
even matter is not outside the scheme of emanation from the grace

(X&pLq) of the One. This being so, Brehier's suggestion I that, if matter

has always existed, "It is a term distinct from the realities which proceed

progressively from the One", is unfounded, at least as far as this passage

is concerned. Plotinus is not concerned here with the question: "Is
matter the last term in the procession of the realities?" or with its

alternative: "Does matter lie outside the schemiie of emanation as a

substratum?" He is mentioning, though here not attempting to resolve,
the problem of whether matter has always existed and is created from
eternity, or whether it only exists in time. Either way, it is not apart
from the procession of the hypostases. As Plotinus writes of the second

alternative: ou8' &g BeL p elvavL.

II

At this point, we must turn from "existential" judgements to judgements

of value. For Plotinus, the Fornms are perfect examples of Being, and
Being is good. The Forms, therefore, are perfect examples of Goodness
and, like all that is good, are so constituted as to give of their Goodness

or "overflow" into creation. All that overflows is good, and all that does
not is evil. Evil is impotence, that inability to create which is the
negation of existence in a system which equLate existence and creativity.
Thus Plotinus can speak of a cause of evil. This cause is quite outside the
Ideal World, the World of Being; it arises below Being out of need,

privation and deficiency (j.9. io). Not however that any deficiency is
evil, for evil is absolute deficiency. What is to a limited degree deficient
in Goodness is not evil; rather it can be perfect so far as its own nature

will permit (i.8.5).

Turning to the so-called dualist passages, we begin to see Plotinus'
thought more clearly. Starting from Plato's Theaetetus,2 Plotinus quotes

with approval (i.8.6) the view that evil exists by necessity since there
must be an opposite to the Good. To the objection that, since the GoodI
is unqualified, it cannot have an opposite, he asserts that, in the case of
two particular substances, there can be no contradiction in essence since
they both possess a conimon element in matter - thus fire is conmpoun(de(d
of matter, warmth and dryness, and water of matter, coldness and wetness
1 E. Br6hier (trans. J. Thomas), The Philosophy of Plotinuis (Chicago i958) 8o.
2 Theaet. 176A.
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- but in the case of the Absolute and matter, their contrariety does not
depend on quality or on genus, but on their extreme separation from

each other, on their contrary conmposition and on their contrary effects.

Thus we have a scale of values. At the one end is the One, which
overflows and is good; at the other there is evil which is impotent and
therefore the cause, not of good, but of absence-of-good. Both are causes,
as Plotinus says, although to make his paradox the more striking, he
declines to make explicit the fact that their "causation" is quite different.

They are both &pXoL, where apyn means "extreme", but one is a

beginning that causes the rest, while the other is a "beginning" that
marks the end of reception rather than the commencement of giving.

Thus although the Good and evil are opposing &p;(ou', there is no evidence
here of evil's having any active power to promote itself. Such language is
only the strongest way of saying that evil is unable to produce and that
production is good. The problem of the so-called "necessity" of evil,
which Plotinus struggles to explain non-dualistically despite Plato's
Timaeus, can be resolved by his theory of emanation, a solution not open

to Plato. For in a theory of enmanation, as there is a First, there must be

a last. This last is the "farthest separated" from the Good and can be said

to have contrary effects. There, as Plotinus says, is the "necessity" of

evil (i.8.7). It is a "necessity" very different from Plato's expressed
thought in the Timaeus, though a legitimate and perhaps essential
descendant of it.

In Ennead I.8.3, Plotinus faces the question: "What is the relation of

evil to Being?" If evil exists, he says, it is analogous to some "form" of

non-being and involved with sonme of the things mingled with non-being
or in some way associated with non-being. Evil is not absolute non-being

(ro mxv.?XxCo pq) ov) but only "other than Being" and 'v Totq [f oUGV.
In this passage it is clear that "the things mingled with non-being or in
some way associated" vith it are such primary physical existents as the

four elements. To speak of evil as analogous to their form is to explain

how it comes about that they are so low in the scale of realities. It is as
though their existence were governed from the bottom rather than from
the top, since they are in a sense as near to non-being and evil as they

are to Being, the Fornms and the Good. Since Being is related to Goodness,

it is obvious that evil must reside with ro' [LA ov.

Evil for Plotinus has no qualities, since it is the negation of Forml. Just
as there is-Goodness itself and "accidental" goodness (i.8.3), so there
is Absolute Evil and "accidental evil". As we know from many passages,
the Good cannot be said to have qualities, since any attribution of

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quality involves the attribution of defect. Nevertheless, this denial of

qualities to the One does not remove it from the realm of realities, or
from the sphere of philosophic thought. Similarly, although evil is

formnless (&vr8sov Ia.8.3), it has a quasi-reality, or rather a denial of

reality. Such is its nature (yp'L5 I.8.6), such is the extent to which

positive terminology - and the word cpatq again suggests a paradoxically

positive character - can be applied to it.
III

It must now be quite clear that there are marked similarities for Plotinus
between matter and evil. Both are a kind of non-being, although not
absolutely non-existent. Both are totally devoid of Form and quality,
though they may be said to have a nature or character which is known

by its "effects". Both are at the lowest remove from Being: one in the
scale of existence, the other in the scale of value. Finally, these two
scales are different ways of looking at the same metaphysical facts, for

metaphysics in the Enneads is, strictly speaking, an indivisible synthesis

of ontology and ethics.

When speaking from the ethical point of view, Plotinus takes up the
powerful, if perhaps slightly rhetorical, position that the cause of evil
is itself evil. Evil is judged by its effects, or rather lack of them, just as

Goodness is judged by its overflowing abundance. Hence we can easily

understand Plotinus' insistence that the unqualified impotence of "utter

lack" is itself evil (I.8.3). Since matter is in this impotent condition, it

is evil (I.8.3; 5.9.IO, etc.). Thus matter is not only veWdo; but
8ae[8eo;, ALaXpO, xkX6c. Plotinus has made &vecWo; equal 8uae8eoq, and
equated utter negativity with positive harm. As he says in the closing

words of 2.4. I6: "Matter is not poverty of wealth or strength; it is

poverty of sense, virtue, beauty, strength, shape, form and quality. This

is surely malignant lack of form (8uaeE&o~), ugly and evil." If matter

lacked certain qualities and possessed others, it might attain a neutral

state between good and evil. Since, however, it is absolutely destitute

and possesses nothing (thus having no creative power), it must be evil.

For Plotinus, what is not good, is evil. "He who is not for me is against

me." It is "positively" evil not to be good.

Plotinus' metaphysic can be likened to a descending number series

from infinity to zero. The One is infinity and matter is zero. Although
zero is nothing, it is not "absolutely non-existent" and it can, paradoxically, have positive effects. X, when raised to the power of zero, for
i6o

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example, is not completely unaffected by the process even though zero

is nothing, for x? equals one.
IV

We must now return to the great treatise against the Gnostics to see

what Plotinus has to say there about basic matter, and to discover
whether his opposition to Gnosticism has any connection with the
equation of matter with evil. It has often been assumed that since the
Gnostics can frequently be called dualists and the notion that matter is
evil is "dualistic", there must be a connection between these two facts.
It is accordingly surprising to find that while Plotinus has a very great

deal to say about Gnostic views of the phenomenal world, there is little
about "basic matter". His chief objection is to the Gnostic view that matter
is isolated from the procession of hypostases - an objection which our
exposition of Enneads i.8 and 2.4 would lead us to expect. If matter is

outside the cosmic chain derived from the One, says Plotinus (2.9.3),

the conclusion must be that the divine hypostases, the One, Noiq and
Soul are limited in space. This is intolerable to a man whose view it is
that the One is present everywhere in its transcendent fashion. Any kind
of spatial limitation seems to him like an impossible walling-in of the

Divin'- Beings and quite unacceptable. Plotinus, refusing to accept the

limitations of the Divine, insists that Matter must not be separate from
the chain of realities, but must constitute the final link.
Again, during his polemic against those who spoke of the "decline" (ro'

v6i3ao) of the Soul and Sophia (2.9. I off.), Plotinus attacks their account
because it leads to the assumption that the phenomenal world is an
original principle. If this were true, he retorts (2.9.I2), matter in the
phenomenal world is also a "primal", which is impossible. According

to some of the Gnostics, when the Soul "declined", it saw and illuminated
the darkness that was already in existence.
To those who may have been willing to accept Plotinus' objection to
the independent existence of matter in eternity, but were still defending
their view of the Soul's "decline" by the suggestion that it did not
"decline" into a pre-existent darkness, but created this darkness by its
"decline", Plotinus replies that their own theory has shown that the
cause of the "decline" is nothing but the nature of Soul, and that they
are thus not justified in using the word "decline" is any derogatory sence.
Since Soul itself is the cause of "decline", the world or matter can not be.
Thus either "declining" is unnatural - which is impossible since this
would imply attributing evil in the world not to the world (as the

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Gnostics wished), but to the Supreme - or the "declining" is good and

at the same time ultimately productive of matter. Thus, contrary to the
Gnostic view, the world cannot be evil, and - which is more relevant to
our argument - even the matter at which the series of emanations comes

to an end is good so far as it is viewed as the product of a superior. It is

only evil when looked at in itself and seen to be that final term of the
scale of Being which is totally impotent.

Plotinus is also aware (2.9.5) of a view which makes matter the

bestower of some kind of life. Here again we have a truly dualistic
conception; here again the view rejected by Plotinus in his treatise
against the Gnostics bears no similarity to any Plotinian statements about

matter and evil such as to lend support to the notion that his views on

the nature of matter had changed as a result of his struggle with Gnosticism. Plotinus protests that the Gnostics' introduction of a second soul,

presumably an evil soul, which they "put together" (auvLa-tci) fromi

the elements is irrational. This combination of the elements, according
to the Gnostics, has some kind of life, while for Plotinus any blending
of the elements can only produce something hot, coid, or intermediate
between hot and cold, or again something dry, wet, or intermediate
between dryness and wetness. Furthermore, comments Plotinus, if this

"soul" arises later from the elements, how can it be the bond which
holds them together as elements? Plainly a bond must be at the least
contemporaneous with the objects it binds.

In short, the Gnostics are in error once again because they make matter

a "primal" or at any rate prior to this kind of "soul". In fact, they should
admit that soul is prior if they wish it to be any kind of "bond" for

matter. The Gnostics, by setting up matter as a First Principle, rather

than as the last creation of Soul in the way that both i.8 and 2.4 teach,
are thus led into these logical difficulties. Such are the objections to

metaphvsical dualism that Plotinus sees; they clearly do not apply to

the relationship in his own system between matter and evil, even if no
development of his views on this theme be assumed.

For Plotinus, the whole sensible world is controlled by the world of

Forms. Every thing has its prototype "*there". Even matter is represented.
There is a Form of matter, although matter is lowest in the scale of

things (5.8.7). Nothing is outside the donminion of' creative Form. The
Gnostics are wrong to separate matter in order to account for evil when

there is no need to do so. Tlhe existence of matter in the Intelligible

World is evidence of the connection of all matter with th-e hierarchy of
Being.
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It may be objected that Intelligible Matter and sensible matter have

nothing in common but the name. Intelligible Matter is based on Being
(2.4. S), and has a "defined and intellectual" life; matter in the sensible
world is a mode of non-being, has no life or intellection and is of itself

a "corpse adorned". Intelligible Matter is eternal; sensible matter has no

permanence other than that of adnmitting permanent change. Since,

however, as Plotinus always asserts, this world is an image of the
Intelligible World, and at the same timne is based on nmatter (' {"X2.4.4), there must be Matter in the Intelligible World as well as here.
Not only must Matter exist "there", but it must be different in all the
ways mentioned above, since it is the archetype and sensible nmatter is
only the copy. Any copy is for Plotinus inferior in all respects to its
archetype and source. A just act might be described as "having nothing
in common with Justice itself but a similarity of name", yet for any
Platonist its derivation is from the Form of Justice. Similarly, matter
in the phenomenal world may in a sense be compared with, and certainly
derives from, its counterpart in the World of Forms.
V
A Source of Confusion

Throughout the Enneads, Plotinus draws heavily on the Platonic

writings. It is only rarely that he is willing openly to oppose his Master.
This reliance, coupled with the fact that Plotinus is innocent of the
suspicion that Plato's views may have developed, is frequently a cause of
confusion; not least is this so in his discussions of matter.
When Plato first postulated the Forms, he was almost certainly thinking
of giving an account of ethical qualities. From these, he passed to a
consideration of mathematical entities and only later did he come to
examine the possibility of their being Forms of substances. In the
dialogues up to and including the Theaetetus, at least, he seemed to find
no difficulty in the view that there are Forms not only of good qualities,
but of bad. In the Republic 1 we find a reference to Forms of justice and
Injustice, Good and Evil, and it seems almost certain that the xcoxXov x0tl
acaxpov x-xt &yxO6v xot' xax6v which Theastetus and Socrates discuss in
the Theaetetus and whose substance (o5al) is there described as viewed
by the soul without the use of bodily faculties are Forms too.2
Although Plato finds no difficulty with the Forms of qualities such as
I Rep. 5. 476A.
2 Theaet. i 8 6A.
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"evil", in the Parmenides Socrates baulks at recognizing Forms of mud,

hair and dirt. Sir David Ross 1 believes that this hesitation "was presumably due to the suggestion of unpleasantness or else of triviality which
such words suggested". Why, however, should Socrates find the Form
of an evil thing, i.e. dirt, objectionable, when he has already been

prepared to tolerate a Form of Evil itself? What in fact is the difference

between an accepted Form of Evil and a proposed Form of Dirt? Only,

it appears, that one involves some kind of matter. In the Parmenides 2

itself, Socrates has already been in difficulties with Forms of more
reputable substances, such as man, fire and water. When he is brought
face to face with Dirt itself, his difficulties become acute although he is
troubled why he should worry more about the Form of Dirt than about
the Form of Man. He seems to fear that if he admits the Form of Man,
he has admitted Forms needing "extensionality" and should therefore
follow the same principle and admit Formls of all substances despite the

absurdities which this appears to entail.

In the dialogues following the Parmenides, as we know, Plato camiie to
admit Forms of "reputable" substances without hesitation.3 It seems

likely that he admitted Forms of Mud, Hair and Dirt also. It has been
suggested that his analysis of negation in the Sophist enabled him to

dispense with such Forms as Evil itself and to account for all evil as
imperfection and negativity. However, as Ross remarks: 4 "There is
nothing to show that he ever took this line."
In interpreting all this Platonic theory without any notion of Platonic

development, Plotinus was faced with a colossal task. Furtlhermore, his

misinterpretation of the Forms as not only perfect exanmples but also as
Active Minds made his task very much more difficult, for if he were to
posit a Form of Evil, he would be immediately involved with a dualism of
the extreme type in which good and evil minds struggle for control of
the universe. Perhaps it mav be alleged that Laws i o, 896E would support
such a view, but it must always be remembered that the phrase TrrJ 'r
e"epyrTt8Oo xcXL 'r5 T&vovTC 8uVoczLv74 sirpycrEa does not explicitly
speak of an evil soul, but only of soul capable of producing effects
that are the opposite of beneficial. Our discussion of the Plotinian docI W. D. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas2 (Oxford 1953) 169.
2 Parm. 1 3oCS-Dg. Substantial Fornms had, of course, been introduced in dialogues earlier

than the Parmenides, e.g. the Form of Bed in Rep. 597, but it appears that only later did
Plato realize the difference their existence miiade to his general theory.

3Cf. Tim. siB; Phil. ISA.

4 W. D. Ross, op.cir. 169.
I 64

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trine of evil should suggest that such a phrase certainly need not involve
metaphysical dualism. No will to evil need be assumed.

Since then Plotinus' Forms are Active Minds, there is no question of

mud and dirt having their own Forms if dualism is to be avoided. Plotinus
then takes advantage of the fact that Socrates' confusion in the Parmenides

about such entities is never explicitly cleared up to interpret the passage

as a straightforward denial of such Forms. Two seemingly contradictory
reasons are given to account for the appearance of mud and dirt in the

phenomenal world (g.9. i4). First, we are told that they do not derive
from the One, as do the Forms, and that there is no No5q in them, but
that Soul, deriving from Noiuq and "taking other things from matter"
receives them from this latter source. A little below, we read that they
are the products of the Soul when it has reached the level of being unable
to produce anything better; matter this time is not mentioned. By the
phrase "taking other things from matter", Plotinus means no more than
that mud and the rest are nearer to "absolute otherness than Being" than
to the Forms. It is interesting to notice however that, although he has to
neglect the Platonic passages suggesting that Evil may have a place in
the World of Forms, he also finds it necessary completely to forget his
Master's doubts about matter. It is primarily because of their quasimaterial aspect, we remember, that Socrates in the Parmenides is hesitant
about the Forms of substances. To admit any kind of "extensionality"
into the Ideal World was a step which Plato apparently took with
considerable reluctance, for "extensionality" must have seemed liable
to confuse Forms with particulars. When Plato finally introduced his
Unlimited Dyad as an element in the Ideal World, he had revolutionized
his own theory and abandoned his fear of any kind of material principle.
Plotinus' taking over the Dyad and his interpretation of it as Intelligible
Matter 1 thus provides a solution to the question of matter at the base
of the phenomenal world without the need to resort to dualism, since
matter in this world is the image of Matter "yonder". Plotinus thus
avoids two varieties of dualism; firstly, he rejects the notion of a Form
of Evil, which for him must involve an Evil Mind, and goes so far as to
In Met. A. 988Ai4, Aristotle tells us that Plato made the One the cause of good and
the Great and Small the cause of evil. This can be brought into harmony with the Plotinian
doctrine of Intelligible Matter if we remember that for Plotinus it is Intelligible Matter

of which matter "here" is an image. In the special sense which we have described, matter
in this world is the quasi-cause of evil, and thus, indirectly, the origin of evil is Intelligible

Matter, although this in no way diminishes the latter's goodness. Some similar doctrine
of Plato would be sufficient to call forth Aristotle's remark in the Metaphysics.

i6S

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explain Plato's treatment of this subject as though the latter were a

Plotinian; secondly, and this time following Plato's later work on the
Dyad, he is able to account for matter without making it an evil principle
as the Gnostics wished to do. By this achievement he produces the
consistent doctrine of the relation between evil and matter which can
be found throughout the Enneads.1
University College, Toronto

1 am particularly indebted for criticism of this paper in its original draft to Mr. F. H.
Sandbach and Professor A. H. Armstrong. Any remaining errors are my own.

i66

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