  We may still ask why the limitless is held to be evil.  According to Plotinus, matter is the condition for the possibility of there being images of Forms in the sensible world.  From this perspective, matter is identified with the receptacle or space in Plato’s Timaeus and the phenomenal properties in the receptacle prior to the imposition of order by the Demiurge.  The very possibility of a sensible world, which is impressively confirmed by the fact that there is one, guarantees that the production from the One, which must include all that is possible (else the One would be self-limiting), also include the sensible world (see I 8. 7).  But the sensible world consists of images of the intelligible world and these images could not exist without matter.