Note 222 — Chapter V · SOME METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ETHICS AND RELIGION

Enneads, I. 8, 15 (quoted and translated in Whittaker, the Neoplatonists, p. 83). Plotinus had just previously made the correct observation that to deny the existence of evil in any and every sense means to deny the existence of good. (κακόν γε εἴ τις λέγοι τὸ παράπαν ἐν τοῖς οὖσι μὴ εἶναι, ἀνάγκη αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ ἀφαθὸν ἀναιρεῖν καὶ μηδὲ ὀπεκτὸν μηδὲν εἶναι.) We might thus say, if good is to be at all, evil must have some kind of relative or phenomenal existence as its antecedent condition. But, as thus serving as a condition for the realisation of good, evil is itself, from a more universal point of view, good, and therefore its existence as evil only apparent. On the whole question of the position of evil in the world-order, see the admirable essay on “Sin” in Dr. McTaggart’s Studies in Hegelian Cosmology.