Arete Family/Aeryn
| μεν εστι γεομετροσ φιλοσοφια και καλοι δε αριθμετροσ εστι καλοσ και ποεητα εστι μετριοσ. | If you are at once acquanted with the geometric foundation of things and with their festive splendor, then your arithmetic will be musical and your poetry exact. |
Contents
The Book of Genesis
In the beginning, there was Nothing. And we call that-thing-which-is-not-something the Aestin. Since the Aestin is not something, it could not be evil, and therefore Aestin is good. The Aestin also did not have any parts, since it was not something, and being without parts, the Aestin could not be disordered. And so from Aestin we are given order. Thus, order is good.
But order is. And so in the beginning, there was only order, and it was good. But since there was a beginning, there must have been that-which-is-after-the-beginning, which we call the Agenoi. The Agenoi could not have been ordered because if it were order then it would have been the beginning, which it was not. And so Agenoi was disordered, and so it must have had parts.
But parts are not the whole, or else they would not be parts, and so the parts do not have to be disordered like the whole. And parts are, and things that are are things, so parts are things. And so after the beginning there were things. And since there was also order and disorder, some of these things were ordered and some of these things were disordered.
And those-things-that-are-ordered are called the Pragma because they are useful. And those-things-that-are-disordered are called the Kalos because they are beautiful. Therefore, after the beginning, there was only utility and beauty, which are good. And one day Pragma and Kalos decided to make something, and we call this something The World of BattleMaster.
The Book of Exodus
There came to be many things which were not before. And some of things things were beautiful, and some of these things were useful. But some of these things were neither beautiful nor useful, and since only the beautiful and the useful are good, these things were not good. The World of BattleMaster was full of those-things-which-are-not-good, especially on the continent we call Atamara. Therefore, Pragma and Kalos decided to bring together all the beautiful and useful things of Atamara so that beauty and utility would be safe and free. They decided to call this new realm Abington.
And so the rest of the Atamara became jealous of the beauty and utility of Abington, and so they called Abington evil. But they did not understand what they were saying, because only beauty and utility, as well as those things that come from beauty and utility, are good, and therefore Abington is good and not evil. And so Pragma and Kalos smiled upon Abington and made Abington powerful among the realms of Atamara.
It came to pass that many of other realms of Atamara saw the goodness of Abington, and they decided to be good. And so they wanted to do beautiful and useful things like the people of Abington. But they did not know how, since all the beauty and utility of Atamara was in Abington. But the Abingtonians, being useful, taught the other realms how to be beautiful. And the Abingtonians, being beautiful, taught the other realms how to be useful. And so in this way, many realms came to be good like Abington.
