Page:Principia Ethica 1922.djvu/242

208 including what I may call mixed evils; that is to say, those evil wholes, which nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something positively good or beautiful. And the second is the nature of what I may similarly call mixed goods; that is to say, those wholes, which, though intrinsically good as wholes, nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something positively evil or ugly. It will greatly facilitate this discussion, if I may be understood throughout to use the terms ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly,’ not necessarily with reference to things of the kind which most naturally occur to us as instances of what is beautiful and ugly, but in accordance with my own proposed definition of beauty. Thus I shall use the word ‘beautiful’ to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is good in itself; and ‘ugly’ to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is evil in itself.

I. With regard, then, to great positive evils, I think it is evident that, if we take all due precautions to discover precisely what those things are, of which, if they existed absolutely by themselves, we should judge the existence to be a great evil, we shall find most of them to be organic unities of exactly the same nature as those which are the greatest positive goods. That is to say, they are cognitions of some object, accompanied by some emotion. Just as neither a cognition nor an emotion, by itself, appeared capable of being greatly good, so (with one exception), neither a cognition nor an emotion, by itself, appears capable of being greatly evil. And just as a whole formed of both, even without the addition of any other element, appeared undoubtedly capable of being a great good, so such a whole, by itself, appears capable of being a great evil. With regard to the third element, which was discussed as capable of adding greatly to the value of a good, namely, true belief, it will appear that it has different relations towards different kinds of evils. In some cases the addition of true belief to a positive evil seems to constitute a far worse evil; but in other cases it is not apparent that it makes any difference.

The greatest positive evils may be divided into the following three classes.

125. (1) The first class consists of those evils, which seem always to include an enjoyment or admiring contemplation of