that we cannot declare either style to be necessarily superior, since an equally good result _on the whole_, or ‘as a whole’ in sense (2), may be obtained by either method; but the distinctively _aesthetic_ temperament seems to be characterised by a tendency to prefer a good result obtained by the classical, to an equally good result obtained by the romantic method. =130.= But what we have now to consider are cases of wholes, in which one or more parts have a great _negative_ value--are great positive evils. And first of all, we may take the _strongest_ cases, like that of retributive punishment, in which we have a whole, exclusively composed of two great positive evils--wickedness and pain. Can such a whole ever be positively good _on the whole_? (1) I can see no reason to think that such wholes ever are positively good _on the whole_. But from the fact that they may, nevertheless, be less evils, than either of their parts taken singly, it follows that they have a characteristic which is most important for the correct decision of practical questions. It follows that, quite apart from _consequences_ or any value which an evil may have as a mere means, it may, _supposing_ one evil already exists, be worth while to create another, since, by the mere creation of this second, there may be constituted a whole less bad than if the original evil had been left to exist by itself. And similarly, with regard to all the wholes which I am about to consider, it must be remembered, that, even if they are not goods _on the whole_, yet, where an evil already exists, as in this world evils do exist, the existence of the other part of these wholes will constitute a thing desirable _for its own sake_--that is to say, not merely a means to future goods, but one of the _ends_ which must be taken into account in estimating what that best possible state of things is, to which every right action must be a means. =131.= (2) But, as a matter of fact, I cannot avoid thinking that there are wholes, containing something positively evil and ugly, which are, nevertheless, great positive goods on the whole. Indeed, it appears to be to this class that those instances of virtue, which contain anything intrinsically good, chiefly belong. It need not, of course, be denied that there is sometimes included in a virtuous disposition more or less of those unmixed goods which were first discussed--that is to say, a real love of what is good or beautiful. But the typical and characteristic virtuous dispositions, so far as they are not mere means, seem rather to be examples of mixed goods. We may take as instances (_a_) Courage and Compassion, which seem to belong to the second of the three classes of virtues distinguished in our last chapter (§ 107); and (_b_) the specifically ‘moral’ sentiment, by reference to which the third of those three classes was defined (§ 108).