The Good and the Bad (that have their initials written in capital letters) represent something indefinable. In contrast with them, good and bad (written with small letters), as adjectives, become definable. If the Good and the Bad become abstract, then good and bad are concrete, digital.

    This distinction between abstract or analogous interpretations and concrete or digital interpretations for the mentioned notions has preoccupied many philosophers, epistemologists, gnoseologists and estheticians. “If I put the question – G. E. Moore wrote in 1903 – how could Good and/or Bad be defined, my answer is that it cannot be defined”.[1] It was St Augustus that used the same words when he “defined” Time: “If they don’t ask me – I know; if, when I am asked about it I try to explain it, I don’t know”.[2] 

   Thus, there is a concordance between Good and Bad on the one hand and Time on the other hand. There is a distinction between them as well. If time is always singular, Good-and-Bad is a dichotomy, namely good – Bad, Ethic – Not ethic, Moral – Immoral, Social – Not social, etc.

    If the example of dichotomies exists, we must admit that yet there are exceptions, such as dichotomies alive –  dead, masculine – feminine for animals and some species of plants (excepting pathological cases). It can be seen that dichotomies alive – dead, masculine – feminine are digital, concrete adjectives. There is left only Good and Bad and what is compared to these still indefinite notions.

    It appears that Good, and, contrasting with it, Bad, have very ancient roots, which sprouted at the same time with conservation instincts of the one individual and of the species to which it belongs. With vertebrates, maternal love appears, or heterosexual attraction of the youth, are obvious. Man, who has become an articulate speaking being, had to develop his phonatory organs and to assign things and phenomena a mutual correspondence between objects and words (signs) and sentences to be made.

    Meanwhile, human society had developed the amplitude of their physical abilities, of counting ability and last, but not least, their psychic faculties. Gambles and parties for young people multiplied, jealousy was born and, according to the time’s habits, injuries, fights and irreparable wounds were done. It seemed necessary to bring forth the Law of the Talion (from the Latin word: “talis” = the equal measure): “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, arm for arm, leg for leg” (Exodus 21.24), “Burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Exodus 21.25). Punishments were effective and efficient, because people assisted to the torture and trauma done to one of theirs who did wrong. Mr. Dagobert D. Runes, in Dictionary of Judaism[3], diminishes the ethic power of the example, so that it would finally reach money ransom, or a bargain. In those times Phoenicians had already invented money, but who could tell now the equivalent of silver sicils that needed to be brought by the author of the crime – for the leg of a young maid or for a green eye that could once see at two yards’ distance what an ordinary drawing represented.

    As human society developed, laws became obsolete, inefficient or useless. People travelled, started to know other people and their preoccupations, they saw a lot of good features and deeds, they saw many bad things as well and some of the people brought these bad thing to their countries. People were searching for a cure to heal society. This way new ideas came out like soul, metempsychosis, transmigration and eschatology, as well as Inferno and Paradise. The most important thing that people could long for is given in Isaiah’s verse 26.19, and it is the resurrection of the dead, as it is also written in Brahmin prophecies – in the case of good persons. In order to earn your resurrection, you must give to others what is that you have more than you need, to do only good deeds so that you do even better in the other world, you have to lead an ascetic life, no luxury but a soteriological life. For almost two milleniums and a half, man paid not too high a price, and excepting periods of war, he slept a peaceful, healthy sleep.

    Good and Bad are not complementary to each other.

    As an example, I shall next quote a party song, almost two milleniums old, sung by orthodox Jews in the first two nights of Easter – Had Gadia (meaning in the Aramaic language “a goat’s kid”): “My father cut a kid for the Easter days, the cat came and ate the kid, the dog came and ate the cat, the stick came and chased the dog, the fire came and burnt the stick, the water came that chased the fire, the ox came who drank the water, the butcher came who cut the ox, the angel of death came and cut the butcher and God came who cut the angel of death”. The question is: which is the class of above elements that is lived by Good and which is the class lived by Bad?

    Good and Bad must not be mistaken with Pleasure or Happiness. In the following lines we shall stop to observe steps of man’s evolution according to his age and necessities of age.

1.      The paisic step (from the Greek term pair = child). A child feels comfortable if he is taken into consideration and is wanted by his parents, his brothers or sisters as the case may be. There is harmony between parents. Material situation of the parents is good.

2.      The neanices step (from the Greek term neanikob= young perosn, teenager). It is manifested when the young person believes that everything that exists is for him. Life is beautiful, only if school did not exist. Anyway, everything is partially recovered by breaks and holidays.

3.      The hedonistic step (from the Greek term `edonh = pleasure). This step is the most prolific one on the point of view of the conservation of the species. The young male or female fully tastes orgasm.

4.      The eudemonic step (from the Greek term `endagmon = wealth, pleasure). People aim now at a rigorous good (Kantian). People have an active rest, are concerned with their children’s good fate, are concerned about their future. The need of an extra-marriage affair comes forth. People begin thinking about their health. It is a good life, generally speaking.

5.      The gerontic step (from the Greek term gedrontikor = old man). It starts with memory lacks. The former addicted atheists start going to churches on Sundays and to study eschatology. Every one describes their own (real, imagined or hypochondriac) disease.

    It seems that the pile of money (fortune) came to be a standard for the Good. Nothing more wrong than that! Money do not bring happiness, or a careless living, or Good, less than everything else.

    It is in the same way as Good and Bad that behave Moral, Immoral, Ethic, Not Ethic, Beautiful, Ugly etc., where Bad is not the opposite of Good, Immoral, Not Ethic, Ugly are not the opposites for Moral, Ethic, Beautiful. All are adjectives transformed into nouns. “The thing itself” refers only to nouns with properties (adjectives), so they do not fit in here. That is why we shall call them Modern Gnoses. All are abstract notions.

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