From this it appears that the general meaning of “bad” is within the scope of our discovery. Not only is this deducible from our previous identification of this concept with the _useless_, the _independable_, and with _that which disappoints_, but it is also plainly foreshadowed by the four behavior situations we have just described. “Bad” seems to imply that action, interest, purpose, and the like, have been thwarted; that the organism has become a center of inhibitions, and is in discomfort either because the energy which it has mobilized cannot be released into action, or because demands for such release cannot be met. Such a physiological condition is best described as _incoordinate_. And this term covers all three of our classes of “bad.” Moreover, by partial contrast with _good_, “bad” implies a _withdrawing reaction_, with either a slump in muscular tone (in which case we have _privative_ “bad”), or else a sudden onset of unrelieved tensions—(_positive_ “bad”). Accompanying such a condition, we may safely postulate synaptic impermeability and inhibition, together with varying degrees of unpleasant strain sensations. But mark, that we do not say that the “bad” is always equivalent to the painful. Were physiological science sufficiently advanced, it would be possible for us to complete our definition of badness in terms of the mal-functioning of such internal systems as the alimentary canal, the cardiac, respiratory, and excretory mechanisms, and the endocrine glands. Our common experience indubitably indicates that all forms of thwarting and inhibition which prompt our exclamations, react violently upon the internal machinery. Indeed, it is not too much to claim that both the centrifugal and centripetal types of behavior which are implied by the terms “good” and “bad” respectively just as often as not have their source in the postures and manœuvres of our organic interior. That is, brief to say, why the healthy man and the dyspeptic, the optimist and the pessimist, will give precisely opposite accounts of the same external world. We remarked before that speech not only points out and distinguishes objects for us, but also implies and predicts human activities. Our analysis of good and bad fortifies this thesis beyond contradiction, and shows that any value predicate that has a specific reference to the environment has specific implications for the organism as well. _The Physiology of “Evil”_