The term “bad” is a gestural sign which we employ in two different senses,—to point out a deficiency or lack, (that is, to indicate merely the absence of good), and in a positive sense, to hint the presence of something definitely antagonistic to good. By an analogy, if money is a good, we should call it “bad” in the privative sense of the term for one to be without it; while it is “bad” in the positive sense for one to be deeply in debt. But even while we ponder these two behavior situations, they tend, at least partly, to coalesce, very much indeed as Classes A and B of “good” merged at times imperceptibly into one another. For if the man who is without money, but not in debt, passionately desires to purchase and spend, he will immediately place himself in the class of debtors, and experience therewith the positive form of “badness,” at least so far as his feelings of inhibition are concerned. However, just to what an extent these two categories of “bad” may be identified cannot be shown until we have first reviewed the separate uses to which this term is put,[8] and have also deduced the action-patterns which it implies.
It can be divined at once from a careful perusal of this brief array, herewith subjoined, that the concept “bad” is, on the whole, a far less variegated symbol than is the concept “good.” Its use is more restricted, its connotation is less rich in variety, and, as can be already predicted, the number of separate classes into which our array may be distributed is fewer than was the case with the term “good.” For while we have here hints of three classes which are, roughly speaking, negatives of Classes A, B, and C of “good,” we have nothing at all comparable to the negatives of Classes D and E. To wit:—
Class A. That which is useless, unfit, unserviceable, and the like, for any purpose whatever.
Class B. That which brings pain, discomfort, loss, or death. In some respects this class is the negative of Class B of “good,” having the general meaning of undependable. However, it is not the negative of every shade of meaning implied by that class, as can at once be seen when we consider that there are no “bads” which are the antitheses of goods, that is, property. For, as we have already observed, even some debts are good debts.
Class C. That which disappoints expectation.[9] Here also the negation is limited, for while with Class C of “good” the tone of the voice could convey an immense variety of meanings, here no such great array of nuances is found.
In consideration, then, of what has just preceded, we may emphatically deny that “bad” is a true antonym of the word “good.” Not only is this to be instantly deduced from the array of uses to which these terms are put, but also from the contents of the five classes of “good” and the three classes of “bad.” We shall presently discover whether “evil,” as an adjunct of the concept “bad,” makes up this discrepancy.
Resuming, then, our main theme, how shall we proceed to define privative and positive “bad” in physiological terms, and by what means shall we discover the action-patterns which are implied by the three classes of “bad” which we have just delimited?
In general, and from the reader’s own experience, “bad” means thwarting, inhibition, opposition, the interruption of action, the durable dissatisfactions of life. We need, however, to come at the matter a little more closely. In the preceding chapter we saw that when we are ready to act, the stimulus that elicits the reaction for which we are keyed up is called “good.” Employing the methods of inductive science, with our eye on the behavior possibilities of the human organism, we find the following stimulus-response situations adequate to reveal the origin of the word “bad.”
1. When we are ready to act in some precise manner, but no stimulus, that is, opportunity, is afforded for such action, the term “bad” adequately describes the situation. Here it becomes a gestural sign which may point either to the environment or to the organism. It is for this reason that a man in debt, hungry, and in want is said to be “in a bad way”; while in his predicament counterfeit money and tainted food would be unequivocally bad.
2. When we are ready to act, but are prevented from releasing the energy we have mobilized because the stimulus is inadequate, and does not call forth the exact response which we have been preparing to make, the situation may again be described as “bad.” “That’s too bad,” we sometimes say of a suit of clothes which, while adequately keeping out the winter’s cold, does not quite fit the shoulders.