Notwithstanding all that has been said, it may still be asked why should those individual beings, whose existence we have claimed to be good for them, exist at all. It will be objected that there exist multitudes of beings whose existence is manifestly _not_ good for them. Take, for instance, the case of the reprobate. If they wish their total annihilation, if they desire the total cessation of their being, rather than an existence of eternal punishment, they undoubtedly wish it _as a good_. Is annihilation or absolute non-existence _really_ a good _for them_? _De facto_ it is _for them_, considered _in their actual condition_ which is _accidental to their nature_. Christ said of the scandal-giver what is surely true of the reprobate: “It were better for that man had he never been born”. We may admit, therefore, that for the reprobate themselves simple non-existence is more desirable, and better, than their actual concrete state of existence as reprobate: because simple non-existence is for them the simple _negation_ of their reality, whereas the absolute and irreparable loss of their last end, the total frustration of the purpose for which they came into being, is for them the greatest conceivable _privation_. But this condition of the reprobate is accidental to their nature, alien to the purpose of their being, a self-incurred failure, a deliberate thwarting of their natural tendency. It remains true, therefore, that their nature is good though incapable of progress, its purpose is good though frustrated. In so far as they have actual reality they have “essential” goodness. Their _natures_ still tend towards self-conservation and the realization of their end. They form no _real_ exception to the general truth that “it is better to be than not to be: _melius est esse quam non esse_”. It is not annihilation as such that is desired by them, but only as a less evil alternative than the eternal privation of their last end.(186) If the evils accidentally and actually attaching to a certain state of existence make the continuance of _this state_ undesirable for a being, it by no means follows that the continuance of this being in existence, simply and in itself, is less desirable than non-existence.