EVIL IS INSEPARABLE FROM THE GOOD.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
7. It is only because there are good things in the world, that there are worse ones. Granting the conception of variety, how could the worse exist without the better, or the better without the worse? We should not, therefore, accuse the better because of the existence of the worse; but rather we should rejoice in the presence of the better, because it communicates a little of its perfection to the worse. To wish to annihilate the worse in the world is tantamount to annihilating Providence itself;95 for if we annihilate the worse, to what could Providence be applied? Neither to itself, nor to the better; for when we speak of supreme Providence, we call it supreme in contrast with that which is inferior to it.