PROCLUS, THE PLATONIC SUCCESSOR

For it would be requisite that there should be
something else about both these, of which they
will participate a ; and the good will no longer
be the principle of beings, but that will be the
principle which is common to both these.
Hence, nothing is contrary to the first good, nor
to all the participants of it, but to those only
which participate of it in a variable manner. Of
these, however, we have before spoken, and
therefore here we dismiss the discussion of
matter.
Again, then, let us pass to privation, because
certain persons assert this to be evil and
entirely contrary to good. For, say they, it is
sufficient to matter for form to be present with
it; but privation
a Because, as Proclus just before observed, contraries
proceed from one summit and genus. Thus, from being
itself motion and permanency, sameness and difference
proceed, which are opposed to each other.
[134] is never good, since it is always malefic
and contrary to forms. And matter, indeed,
aspires after good, and partakes of it; but
privation flies from good, is the cause of
corruption, and, in short, is evil. If, indeed, the
first good was the same with being, and good
and being were at the same time one nature, it
would be requisite that privation should be
primarily evil, in consequence of being of itself
non-entity and contrary to being. But if good is
different from being, and each is not the same
thing, evil also will be different from privation.
In short, with respect to inordination and
incommensuration, these, as we have said,
must be assumed in one way, as the absence of
measure and order; but in another way, as
naturally contrary to them. For the latter are
adverse to order and measure; but the former
are only an ablation of them, and are nothing
except a negation of these. For when present,