IN WHAT SENSE EVILS ARE UNIVERSAL AND UNAVOIDABLE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
6. Let us examine the significance of the doctrine174 that evils cannot be destroyed, that they are necessary, that they do not exist among the divinities, but that they ever besiege our mortal nature, and the place in which we dwell.175 Surely heaven is free from all evil because it moves eternally with regularity, in perfect order; because in the stars is neither injustice nor any other kind of evil, because they do not conflict with each other in their courses; and because their revolutions are presided over by the most beautiful harmony.164 On the contrary, the earth reveals injustice and disorder, (chiefly) because our nature is mortal, and we dwell in a lower place. But when Plato,176 says, that we must flee from here below, he does not mean that we should leave the earth, but, while remaining therein, practice justice, piety, and wisdom. It is wickedness that must be fled from, because wickedness and its consequences are the evil of man.