3. As these are real beings, and as the first Principle is their
superior, evil could not exist in such beings, and still less in Him,
who is superior to them; for all these things are good. Evil then must
be located in non-being, and must, so to speak, be its form, referring
to the things that mingle with it, or have some community with it. This
"non-being," however, is not absolute non-being.[166] Its difference
from being resembles the difference between being and movement or
rest; but only as its image, or something still more distant from
reality. Within this non-being are comprised all sense-objects, and
all their passive modifications; or, evil may be something still more
inferior, like their accident or principle, or one of the things that
contribute to its constitution. To gain some conception of evil it may
be represented by the contrast between measure and incommensurability;
between indetermination and its goal; between lack of form and the
creating principle of form; between lack and self-sufficiency; as the
perpetual unlimited and changeableness; as passivity, insatiableness,
and absolute poverty.[167] Those are not the mere accidents of evil,
but its very essence; all of that can be discovered when any part of
evil is examined. The other objects, when they participate in the evil
and resemble it, become evil without however being absolute Evil.