Plotinus, like every one else who has attempted to solve the Riddle of the Sphinx, is up against the basic facts of existence. Boldly and perseveringly as we may attempt to face the problem, the Sphinx sits and smiles with the smile that will not come off, well knowing that however near we may seem to be to the solution of the mystery, the problem will still baffle us, and remain unsolved to the end. We may postulate a Deity who is all Perfection, but, if we do so, it rests with us to explain how it is that evil is present in the universe, if this Deity is in reality, as Plotinus and other philosophers have taught us, the All. We may postulate matter as inherently evil in nature, in opposition to the Good, but if so, whence comes that which is not included in the All? If matter is the mere privation of good, whence come its apparently very positive qualities? If the All is complete and perfect in itself, what need for the manifested universe? What need for the striving after a higher perfection, which gives the lie to the Absolute Perfection predicated of the One? Matthew Arnold has adopted the hypothesis of a “Power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness”; but in this hypothesis he first abandons the conception of the unity of the All and subsequently throws over the idea of divine perfection. For his Deity is, after all, only striving after a perfection which he has not yet reached. The dualistic conception offers in truth fewer difficulties to the ordinary mind. It is more in accordance with the obvious facts of existence, which are brought under our notice every day of our lives. Deceptive and illusory though the conception may be, we still appear to be confronted by the existence of a gigantic struggle between good and evil in which the two combatants are more nearly matched than we care to admit. We like to shut our eyes to this and postulate a Deity of infinite power and infinite beneficence, but, while we do so, we are for ever admitting into our intellectual sphere certain conceptions that run counter to this theory, and in order to acquit our Deity of responsibility for the evil which we see ever around us, we make of the Devil a scapegoat who, in practice, bears on his shoulders the sins of the whole world; or alternatively we accept a conception of God and the Devil which runs on parallel lines with that of Dickens’ Spenlow and Jawkins. If behind Good and Evil, the two forces which are everlastingly struggling for the mastery, we have, as Plotinus and other of the wisest philosophers assure us, some principle of Unity from which both alike flow, are we justified in postulating of that Unity Absolute Perfection and Absolute Power? Or are we not nearer the mark in describing it in the Nietzschean phrase as “beyond good and evil,” as possessed of attributes and qualities which finite brains are incapable of apprehending? Are we not indeed darkening counsel by attributing to this