II. 4. 16 (end)
(Armstrong Selection and Translation from the Enneads)
Is matter then evil because it participates in good? Rather, because it lacks it; for this means that it does not have it. Anything which lacks something but has something else might perhaps hold a middle position between good and evil, if its lack and its having more or less balance: but that which has nothing because it is in want, or rather is want, must necessarily be evil. For it is not want of wealth but want of thought, want of virtue, of beauty, strength, shape, form, quality. Must it not then be ugly, utterly vile, utterly evil? But the matter There is something real, for That which is before it is beyond being. Here, however, that which is before matter is real, and so matter itself is not real; it is something else over against the excellence of real being.