Word," "the absolute No-thing which is above all existence.[161]"
Even now he is not satisfied with the tortures to which he has
subjected the Greek language. "No monad or triad," he says, "can
express the all-transcending hiddenness of the all-transcending
super-essentially super-existing super-Deity.[162]" But even in the
midst of this barbarous jargon he does not quite forget his Plato.
"The Good and Beautiful," he says, "are the cause of all things that
are; and all things love and aspire to the Good and Beautiful, which
are, indeed, the sole objects of their desire." "Since, then, the
Absolute Good and Beautiful is honoured by eliminating all qualities
from it, the non-existent also ([Greek: to mê on]) must
participate in the Good and Beautiful." This pathetic absurdity shows
what we are driven to if we try to graft Indian nihilism upon the
Platonic doctrine of ideas. Plotinus tried hard to show that his First
Person was very different from his lowest category--non-existent
"matter"; but if we once allow ourselves to define the Infinite as the
Indefinite, the conclusion which he deprecated cannot long be averted.

"God is the Being of all that is." Since, then, Being is identical
with God or Goodness, evil, as such, does not exist; it only exists by
its participation in good. Evil, he says, is not in things which
exist; a good tree cannot bear evil fruit; it must, therefore, have
another origin. But this is dualism, and must be rejected.[163] Nor
is evil in God, nor of God; nor in the angels; nor in the human soul;
nor in the brutes; nor in inanimate nature; nor in matter. Having thus
hunted evil out of every corner of the universe, he asks--Is evil,
then, simply privation of good? But privation is not evil in itself.
No; evil must arise from "disorderly and inharmonious motion." As dirt
has been defined as matter in the wrong place, so evil is good in the
wrong place. It arises by a kind of accident; "all evil is done with