C.S. Lewis
THE ABOLITION OF MAN
or
Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of
schools
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Master said, He who sets to work on a different strand destroys the whole fabric
—Confucius, Analects II. 16
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------CONTENTS Men Without Chests
The Way
The Abolition of Man
Appendix-Illustrations of the Tao
Lewis's notes are placed at the bottom of each chapter document.
Transcriber's notes (and explanations) follow Lewis's.
Also of interest: Dale Nelson's Commentary on The Abolition of Man
Chapter 1
MEN WITHOUT CHESTS
So he sent the word to slay
And slew the little childer.
—TRADITIONAL CAROL
I doubt whether we are sufficiently attentive to the importance of elementary text books. That is why
I have chosen as the starting-point for these lectures a little book on English intended for 'boys and
girls in the upper forms of schools'. I do not think the authors of this book (there were two of them)
intended any harm, and I owe them, or their publisher, good language for sending me a
complimentary copy. At the same time I shall have nothing good to say of them. Here is a pretty
predicament. I do not want to pillory two modest practising schoolmasters who were doing the best
they knew: but I cannot be silent about what I think the actual tendency of their work. I therefore
propose to conceal their names. I shall refer to these gentlemen as Gaius and Titius and to their book
as The Green Book. But I promise you there is such a book and I have it on my shelves.
In their second chapter Gaius and Titius quote the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall.
You remember that there were two tourists present: that one called it 'sublime' and the other 'pretty';
and that Coleridge mentally endorsed the first judgement and rejected the second with disgust. Gaius
and Titius comment as follows: 'When the man said This is sublime, he appeared to be making a
remark about the waterfall... Actually ... he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a
remark about his own feelings. What he was saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind
with the word "Sublime", or shortly, I have sublime feelings' Here are a good many deep questions
settled in a pretty summary fashion. But the authors are not yet finished. They add: 'This confusion is
continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about
something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings.'1
Before considering the issues really raised by this momentous little paragraph (designed, you will
remember, for 'the upper forms of schools') we must eliminate one mere confusion into which Gaius
and Titius have fallen. Even on their own view—on any conceivable view—the man who says This
is sublime cannot mean I have sublime feelings. Even if it were granted that such qualities as
sublimity were simply and solely projected into things from our own emotions, yet the emotions
which prompt the projection are the correlatives, and therefore almost the opposites, of the qualities
projected. The feelings which make a man call an object sublime are not sublime feelings but
feelings of veneration. If This is sublime is to be reduced at all to a statement about the speaker's
feelings, the proper translation would be I have humble feelings. If the view held by Gaius and Titius
were consistently applied it would lead to obvious absurdities. It would force them to maintain that
You are contemptible means I have contemptible feelings', in fact that Your feelings are
contemptible means My feelings are contemptible. But we need not delay over this which is the very
pons asinorum of our subject. It would be unjust to Gaius and Titius themselves to emphasize what
was doubtless a mere inadvertence.
The schoolboy who reads this passage in The Green Book will believe two propositions: firstly, that
all sentences containing a predicate of value are statements about the emotional state of the speaker,
and secondly, that all such statements are unimportant. It is true that Gaius and Titius have said
neither of these things in so many words. They have treated only one particular predicate of value
(sublime) as a word descriptive of the speaker's emotions. The pupils are left to do for themselves
the work of extending the same treatment to all predicates of value: and no slightest obstacle to such
extension is placed in their way. The authors may or may not desire the extension: they may never
have given the question five minutes' serious thought in their lives. I am not concerned with what
they desired but with the effect their book will certainly have on the schoolboy's mind. In the same
way, they have not said that judgements of value are unimportant. Their words are that we 'appear to
be saying something very important' when in reality we are 'only saying something about our own
feelings'. No schoolboy will be able to resist the suggestion brought to bear upon him by that word
only. I do not mean, of course, that he will make any conscious inference from what he reads to a
general philosophical theory that all values are subjective and trivial. The very power of Gaius and
Titius depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks he is 'doing' his 'English
prep' and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put
into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence
unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a
controversy at all. The authors themselves, I suspect, hardly know what they are doing to the boy,
and he cannot know what is being done to him.
Before considering the philosophical credentials of the position which Gaius and Titius have adopted
about value, I should like to show its practical results on the educational procedure. In their fourth
chapter they quote a silly advertisement of a pleasure cruise and proceed to inoculate their pupils
against the sort of writing it exhibits.2 The advertisement tells us that those who buy tickets for this
cruise will go 'across the Western Ocean where Drake of Devon sailed', 'adventuring after the
treasures of the Indies', and bringing home themselves also a 'treasure' of 'golden hours' and 'glowing
colours'. It is a bad bit of writing, of course: a venal and bathetic exploitation of those emotions of
awe and pleasure which men feel in visiting places that have striking associations with history or
legend. If Gaius and Titius were to stick to their last and teach their readers (as they promised to do)
the art of English composition, it was their business to put this advertisement side by side with
passages from great writers in which the very emotion is well expressed, and then show where the
difference lies.
They might have used Johnson's famous passage from the Western Islands, which concludes: 'That
man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or
whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.'3 They might have taken that place in
The Prelude where Wordsworth describes how the antiquity of London first descended on his mind
with 'Weight and power, Power growing under weight'.4 A lesson which had laid such literature
beside the advertisement and really discriminated the good from the bad would have been a lesson
worth teaching. There would have been some blood and sap in it—the trees of knowledge and of life
growing together. It would also have had the merit of being a lesson in literature: a subject of which
Gaius and Titius, despite their professed purpose, are uncommonly shy.
What they actually do is to point out that the luxurious motor-vessel won't really sail where Drake
did, that the tourists will not have any adventures, that the treasures they bring home will be of a
purely metaphorical nature, and that a trip to Margate might provide 'all the pleasure and rest' they
required.5 All this is very true: talents inferior to those of Gaius and Titius would have sufficed to
discover it. What they have not noticed, or not cared about, is that a very similar treatment could be
applied to much good literature which treats the same emotion. What, after all, can the history of
early British Christianity, in pure reason, add to the motives for piety as they exist in the eighteenth
century? Why should Mr Wordsworth's inn be more comfortable or the air of London more healthy
because London has existed for a long time? Or, if there is indeed any obstacle which will prevent a
critic from 'debunking' Johnson and Wordsworth (and Lamb, and Virgil, and Thomas Browne, and
Mr de la Mare) as The Green Book debunks the advertisement, Gaius and Titius have given their
schoolboy readers no faintest help to its discovery.
From this passage the schoolboy will learn about literature precisely nothing. What he will learn
quickly enough, and perhaps indelibly, is the belief that all emotions aroused by local association are
in themselves contrary to reason and contemptible. He will have no notion that there are two ways of
being immune to such an advertisement—that it falls equally flat on those who are above it and
those who are below it, on the man of real sensibility and on the mere trousered ape who has never
been able to conceive the Atlantic as anything more than so many million tons of cold salt water.
There are two men to whom we offer in vain a false leading article on patriotism and honour: one is
the coward, the other is the honourable and patriotic man. None of this is brought before the
schoolboy's mind. On the contrary, he is encouraged to reject the lure of the 'Western Ocean' on the
very dangerous ground that in so doing he will prove himself a knowing fellow who can't be bubbled
out of his cash. Gaius and Titius, while teaching him nothing about letters, have cut out of his soul,
long before he is old enough to choose, the possibility of having certain experiences which thinkers
of more authority than they have held to be generous, fruitful, and humane. But it is not only Gaius
and Titius. In another little book, whose author I will call Orbilius, I find that the same operation,
under the same general anaesthetic, is being carried out. Orbilius chooses for 'debunking' a silly bit
of writing on horses, where these animals are praised as the 'willing servants' of the early colonists in
Australia.6 And he falls into the same trap as Gaius and Titius. Of Ruksh and Sleipnir and the
weeping horses of Achilles and the war-horse in the Book of Job—nay even of Brer Rabbit and of
Peter Rabbit—of man's prehistoric piety to 'our brother the ox'—of all that this semianthropomorphic treatment of beasts has meant in human history and of the literature where it finds
noble or piquant expression—he has not a word to say.7 Even of the problems of animal psychology
as they exist for science he says nothing. He contents himself with explaining that horses are not,
secundum litteram, interested in colonial expansion.8 This piece of information is really all that his
pupils get from him. Why the composition before them is bad, when others that lie open to the same
charge are good, they do not hear. Much less do they learn of the two classes of men who are,
respectively, above and below the danger of such writing—the man who really knows horses and
really loves them, not with anthropomorphic illusions, but with ordinate love, and the irredeemable
urban blockhead to whom a horse is merely an old-fashioned means of transport. Some pleasure in
their own ponies and dogs they will have lost; some incentive to cruelty or neglect they will have
received; some pleasure in their own knowingness will have entered their minds. That is their day's
lesson in English, though of English they have learned nothing. Another little portion of the human
heritage has been quietly taken from them before they were old enough to understand.
I have hitherto been assuming that such teachers as Gaius and Titius do not fully realize what they
are doing and do not intend the far-reaching consequences it will actually have. There is, of course,
another possibility. What I have called (presuming on their concurrence in a certain traditional
system of values) the 'trousered ape' and the 'urban blockhead' may be precisely the kind of man they
really wish to produce. The differences between us may go all the way down. They may really hold
that the ordinary human feelings about the past or animals or large waterfalls are contrary to reason
and contemptible and ought to be eradicated. They may be intending to make a clean sweep of
traditional values and start with a new set. That position will be discussed later. If it is the position
which Gaius and Titius are holding, I must, for the moment, content myself with pointing out that it
is a philosophical and not a literary position. In filling their book with it they have been unjust to the
parent or headmaster who buys it and who has got the work of amateur philosophers where he
expected the work of professional grammarians. A man would be annoyed if his son returned from
the dentist with his teeth untouched and his head crammed with the dentist's obiter dicta on
bimetallism or the Baconian theory.
But I doubt whether Gaius and Titius have really planned, under cover of teaching English, to
propagate their philosophy. I think they have slipped into it for the following reasons. In the first
place, literary criticism is difficult, and what they actually do is very much easier. To explain why a
bad treatment of some basic human emotion is bad literature is, if we exclude all question-begging
attacks on the emotion itself, a very hard thing to do. Even Dr Richards, who first seriously tackled
the problem of badness in literature, failed, I think, to do it. To 'debunk' the emotion, on the basis of
a commonplace rationalism, is within almost anyone's capacity. In the second place, I think Gaius
and Titius may have honestly misunderstood the pressing educational need of the moment. They see
the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda—they have learned from tradition that
youth is sentimental—and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of
young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one
pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be
awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down
jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just
sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the
propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible
protection against a soft head.
But there is a third, and a profounder, reason for the procedure which Gaius and Titius adopt. They
may be perfectly ready to admit that a good education should build some sentiments while
destroying others. They may endeavour to do so. But it is impossible that they should succeed. Do
what they will, it is the 'debunking' side of their work, and this side alone, which will really tell. In
order to grasp this necessity clearly I must digress for a moment to show that what may be called the
educational predicament of Gaius and Titius is different from that of all their predecessors.
Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain
emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it—believed, in fact,
that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or
our contempt. The reason why Coleridge agreed with the tourist who called the cataract sublime and
disagreed with the one who called it pretty was of course that he believed inanimate nature to be
such that certain responses could be more 'just' or 'ordinate' or 'appropriate' to it than others. And he
believed (correctly) that the tourists thought the same. The man who called the cataract sublime was
not intending simply to describe his own emotions about it: he was also claiming that the object was
one which merited those emotions. But for this claim there would be nothing to agree or disagree
about. To disagree with This is pretty if those words simply described the lady's feelings, would be
absurd: if she had said I feel sick Coleridge would hardly have replied No; I feel quite well. When
Shelley, having compared the human sensibility to an Aeolian lyre, goes on to add that it differs
from a lyre in having a power of 'internal adjustment' whereby it can 'accommodate its chords to the
motions of that which strikes them',9 he is assuming the same belief. 'Can you be righteous', asks
Traherne, 'unless you be just in rendering to things their due esteem? All things were made to be
yours and you were made to prize them according to their value.'10
St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every
object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it.11 Aristotle says that the aim
of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.12 When the age for reflective
thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in 'ordinate affections' or 'just sentiments' will
easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he
can make no progress in that science.13 Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal
will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and
hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful.14 In the Republic,
the well-nurtured youth is one 'who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of
man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from
his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being
nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so
that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in
welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.'15 In early Hinduism that conduct
in men which can be called good consists in conformity to, or almost participation in, the Rta—that
great ritual or pattern of nature and supernature which is revealed alike in the cosmic order, the
moral virtues, and the ceremonial of the temple. Righteousness, correctness, order, the Rta, is
constantly identified with satya or truth, correspondence to reality. As Plato said that the Good was
'beyond existence' and Wordsworth that through virtue the stars were strong, so the Indian masters
say that the gods themselves are born of the Rta and obey it.16
The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all
predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is
the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and
tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that
cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar.17 'In ritual',
say the Analects, 'it is harmony with Nature that is prized.'18 The ancient Jews likewise praise the
Law as being 'true'.19
This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall
henceforth refer to for brevity simply as 'the Tao'. Some of the accounts of it which I have quoted
will seem, perhaps, to many of you merely quaint or even magical. But what is common to them all
is something we cannot neglect. It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes
are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we
are. Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not
simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to
recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not. I myself
do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I recognize this as a
defect in myself—just as a man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf or colour blind. And
because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an
objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for
what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but
cannot feel it). No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are
alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform.
The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.
Over against this stands the world of The Green Book. In it the very possibility of a sentiment being
reasonable—or even unreasonable—has been excluded from the outset. It can be reasonable or
unreasonable only if it conforms or fails to conform to something else. To say that the cataract is
sublime means saying that our emotion of humility is appropriate or ordinate to the reality, and thus
to speak of something else besides the emotion; just as to say that a shoe fits is to speak not only of
shoes but of feet. But this reference to something beyond the emotion is what Gaius and Titius
exclude from every sentence containing a predicate of value. Such statements, for them, refer solely
to the emotion. Now the emotion, thus considered by itself, cannot be either in agreement or
disagreement with Reason. It is irrational not as a paralogism is irrational, but as a physical event is
irrational: it does not rise even to the dignity of error. On this view, the world of facts, without one
trace of value, and the world of feelings, without one trace of truth or falsehood, justice or injustice,
confront one another, and no rapprochement is possible.
Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao.
For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate,
whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those
without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists
between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far
as possible, from the pupil's mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have
nothing to do with their intrinsic 'justness' or 'ordinacy'. The latter course involves them in the
questionable process of creating in others by 'suggestion' or incantation a mirage which their own
reason has successfully dissipated.
Perhaps this will become clearer if we take a concrete instance. When a Roman father told his son
that it was a sweet and seemly thing to die for his country, he believed what he said. He was
communicating to the son an emotion which he himself shared and which he believed to be in accord
with the value which his judgement discerned in noble death. He was giving the boy the best he had,
giving of his spirit to humanize him as he had given of his body to beget him. But Gaius and Titius
cannot believe that in calling such a death sweet and seemly they would be saying 'something
important about something'. Their own method of debunking would cry out against them if they
attempted to do so. For death is not something to eat and therefore cannot be dulce in the literal
sense, and it is unlikely that the real sensations preceding it will be dulce even by analogy. And as
for decorum—that is only a word describing how some other people will feel about your death when
they happen to think of it, which won't be often, and will certainly do you no good. There are only
two courses open to Gaius and Titius. Either they must go the whole way and debunk this sentiment
like any other, or must set themselves to work to produce, from outside, a sentiment which they
believe to be of no value to the pupil and which may cost him his life, because it is useful to us (the
survivors) that our young men should feel it. If they embark on this course the difference between
the old and the new education will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely
'conditions'. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them
to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds— making them
thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of
propagation—men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.
It is to their credit that Gaius and Titius embrace the first alternative. Propaganda is their
abomination: not because their own philosophy gives a ground for condemning it (or anything else)
but because they are better than their principles. They probably have some vague notion (I will
examine it in my next lecture) that valour and good faith and justice could be sufficiently
commended to the pupil on what they would call 'rational' or 'biological' or 'modern' grounds, if it
should ever become necessary. In the meantime, they leave the matter alone and get on with the
business of debunking. But this course, though less inhuman, is not less disastrous than the opposite
alternative of cynical propaganda. Let us suppose for a moment that the harder virtues could really
be theoretically justified with no appeal to objective value. It still remains true that no justification of
virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless
against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about
ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat', than against an irreproachable moral
philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the
reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment. The crudest
sentimentalism (such as Gaius and Titius would wince at) about a flag or a country or a regiment
will be of more use. We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so
Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element'.20 The head rules the
belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity,21 of emotions organized by
trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable
liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle
element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.
The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests.
It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance
to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from
other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her. Indeed it would
be strange if they were: a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be
long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which Gaius and Titius could debunk as easily as any
other. It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out.
Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them
seem so.
And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very
qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the
statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or
'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make
men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to
find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
Men Without Chests
The Way
The Abolition of Man
Appendix-Illustrations of the Tao
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------NOTES
1 The Green Book, pp. 19, 20.
2 Ibid., p 53.
3 Journey to the Western Islands (Samuel Johnson).
4 The Prelude, viii, 11. 549-59.
5 The Green Book, pp. 53-5.
6 Orbilius' book, p 5.
7 Orbilius is so far superior to Gaius and Titius that he does (pp. 19-22) contrast a piece of good
writing to animals with the piece condemned. Unfortunately, however, the only superiority he really
demonstrates in the second extract is its superiority in factual truth. The specifically literary problem
(the use and abuse of expressions which are false secundum litteram) is not tackled. Orbilius indeed
tells us (p. 97) that we must 'learn to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate figurative
statement', but he gives us very little help in doing so. At the same time it is fair to record my
opinion that his work is on quite a different level from The Green Book.
8 Ibid., p 9.
9 Defence of Poetry.
10 Centuries of Meditations, i, 12.
11 De Civ. Dei, xv. 22. Cf. ibid. ix. 5, xi. 28.
12 Eth. Nic. 1104 b.
13 Ibid. 1095 b.
14 Laws, 653.
15 Republic, 402 a.
16 A. B. Keith, s.v. 'Righteousness (Hindu)' Enc. Religion and Ethics, vol. x.
17 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 454 b; iv. 12 b; ix. 87 a.
18 The Analects of Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley, London, 1938, i. 12
19 Psalm 119:151. The word is emeth, 'truth'. Where the Satya of the Indian sources emphasizes
truth as 'correspondence', emeth (connected with a verb that means 'to be firm') emphasizes rather
the reliability or trustworthiness of truth. Faithfulness and permanence are suggested by Hebraists as
alternative renderings. Emeth is that which does not deceive, does not 'give', does not change, that
which holds water. (See T. K. Cheyne in Encyclopedia Biblica, 1914, s.v. 'Truth'.)
20 Republic, 442 b, c.
21 Alanus ab Insulis. De Planctu Naturae Prosa, iii.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Transcriber's Notes
Bimetallism - use of two precious metals (e.g. gold and silver) as the standard of currency
Baconian theory - theory that holds Francis Bacon to have written the plays attributed to
Shakespeare
Elemetary text-books - (1940's British) equivalent to high school-level books
Dulce (sweet) Decorum (seemly or honorable) from the Roman saying dulce et decorum est pro
patria mori "It is sweet and seemly to die for one's country."
Margate - resort area on the southeastern coast of England
Marathon...Iona Marathon is a plain in southeast Greece, where the Athenians defeated Persian
invaders in 490 B.C. and saved Western civilization. Iona is a remote island west of Scotland, where
despite many hazards monks preserved the Christian faith and much of Western learning. Samuel
Johnson meant that seeing these famous sites, scenes of the greatest human dedication, should
inspire a good person to greater love of his own country and religious faith.
Pons asinorum - bridge of asses, a basic geometric theorem
Obiter dicta - incidental judgements or opinions
Ordo amoris - order of love
Ruksh, Sleipnir, etc. - majestic or lovable animals of literature
Secundum literam - literally true
Stick to their last - stick to their proper job, from the expression "Shoemaker, stick to your last" (the
last is a model of the human foot, made of wood or metal)
Upper forms of schools (1940's British) equivalent to American upper grades
Chapter 2
THE WAY
It is upon the Trunk that a gentleman works.
—Analects of Confucius, I.2
The practical result of education in the spirit of The Green Book must be the destruction of the
society which accepts it. But this is not necessarily a refutation of subjectivism about values as a
theory. The true doctrine might be a doctrine which if we accept we die. No one who speaks from
within the Tao could reject it on that account: 'εν δε φαει και 'δλεσσου. But it has not yet come to
that. There are theoretical difficulties in the philosophy of Gaius and Titius.
However subjective they may be about some traditional values, Gaius and Titius have shown by the
very act of writing The Green Book that there must be some other values about which they are not
subjective at all. They write in order to produce certain states of mind in the rising generation, if not
because they think those states of mind intrinsically just or good, yet certainly because they think
them to be the means to some state of society which they regard as desirable. It would not be
difficult to collect from various passages in The Green Book what their ideal is. But we need not.
The important point is not the precise nature of their end, but the fact that they have an end at all.
They must have, or their book (being purely practical in intention) is written to no purpose. And this
end must have real value in their eyes. To abstain from calling it good and to use, instead, such
predicates as 'necessary' or 'progressive' or 'efficient' would be a subterfuge. They could be forced by
argument to answer the questions 'necessary for what?', 'progressing towards what?', 'effecting
what?'; in the last resort they would have to admit that some state of affairs was in their opinion good
for its own sake. And this time they could not maintain that 'good' simply described their own
emotion about it. For the whole purpose of their book is so to condition theyoung reader that he will
share their approval, and this would be either a fool's or a villain's undertaking unless they held that
their approval was in some way valid or correct.
In actual fact Gaius and Titius will be found to hold, with complete uncritical dogmatism, the whole
system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the
professional classes during the period between the two wars.1 Their scepticism about values is on
the surface: it is for use on other people's values; about the values current in their own set they are
not nearly sceptical enough. And this phenomenon is very usual. A great many of those who
'debunk' traditional or (as they would say) 'sentimental' values have in the background values of their
own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process. They claim to be cutting away
the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that 'real' or 'basic'
values may emerge. I will now try to find out what happens if this is seriously attempted.
Let us continue to use the previous example—that of death for a good cause—not, of course,
because virtue is the only value or martyrdom the only virtue, but because this is the experimentum
crucis which shows different systems of thought in the clearest light. Let us suppose that an
Innovator in values regards dulce et decorum and greater love hath no man as mere irrational
sentiments which are to be stripped off in order that we may get down to the 'realistic' or 'basic'
ground of this value. Where will he find such a ground?
First of all, he might say that the real value lay in the utility of such sacrifice to the community.
'Good', he might say, 'means what is useful to the community.' But of course the death of the
community is not useful to the community—only the death of some of its members. What is really
meant is that the death of some men is useful to other men. That is very true. But on what ground are
some men being asked to die for the benefit of others? Every appeal to pride, honour, shame, or love
is excluded by hypothesis. To use these would be to return to sentiment and the Innovator's task is,
having cut all that away, to explain to men, in terms of pure reasoning, why they will be well advised
to die that others may live. He may say 'Unless some of us risk death all of us are certain to die.' But
that will be true only in a limited number of cases; and even when it is true it provokes the very
reasonable counter question 'Why should I be one of those who take the risk?'
At this point the Innovator may ask why, after all, selfishness should be more 'rational' or 'intelligent'
than altruism. The question is welcome. If by Reason we mean the process actually employed by
Gaius and Titius when engaged in debunking (that is, the connecting by inference of propositions,
ultimately derived from sense data, with further propositions), then the answer must be that a refusal
to sacrifice oneself is no more rational than a consent to do so. And no less rational. Neither choice
is rational—or irrational—at all. From propositions about fact alone no practical conclusion can ever
be drawn. This will preserve society cannot lead to do this except by the mediation of society ought
to be preserved. This will cost you your life cannot lead directly to do not do this: it can lead to it
only through a felt desire or an acknowledged duty of self-preservation. The Innovator is trying to
get a conclusion in the imperative mood out of premisses in the indicative mood: and though he
continues trying to all eternity he cannot succeed, for the thing is impossible. We must therefore
either extend the word Reason to include what our ancestors called Practical Reason and confess that
judgements such as society ought to be preserved (though they can support themselves by no reason
of the sort that Gaius and Titius demand) are not mere sentiments but are rationality itself; or else we
must give up at once, and for ever, the attempt to find a core of 'rational' value behind all the
sentiments we have debunked. The Innovator will not take the first alternative, for practical
principles known to all men by Reason are simply the Tao which he has set out to supersede. He is
more likely to give up the quest for a 'rational' core and to hunt for some other ground even more
'basic' and 'realistic'.
This he will probably feel that he has found in Instinct. The preservation of society, and of the
species itself, are ends that do not hang on the precarious thread of Reason: they are given by
Instinct. That is why there is no need to argue against the man who does not acknowledge them. We
have an instinctive urge to preserve our own species. That is why men ought to work for posterity.
We have no instinctive urge to keep promises or to respect individual life: that is why scruples of
justice and humanity—in fact the Tao—can be properly swept away when they conflict with our real
end, the preservation of the species. That, again, is why the modern situation permits and demands a
new sexual morality: the old taboos served some real purpose in helping to preserve the species, but
contraceptives have modified this and we can now abandon many of the taboos. For of course sexual
desire, being instinctive, is to be gratified whenever it does not conflict with the preservation of the
species. It looks, in fact, as if an ethics based on instinct will give the Innovator all he wants and
nothing that he does not want.
In reality we have not advanced one step. I will not insist on the point that Instinct is a name for we
know not what (to say that migratory birds find their way by instinct is only to say that we do not
know how migratory birds find their way), for I think it is here being used in a fairly definite sense,
to mean an unreflective or spontaneous impulse widely felt by the members of a given species. In
what way does Instinct, thus conceived, help us to find 'real' values? Is it maintained that we must
obey Instinct, that we cannot do otherwise? But if so, why are Green Books and the like written?
Why this stream of exhortation to drive us where we cannot help going? Why such praise for those
who have submitted to the inevitable? Or is it maintained that if we do obey Instinct we shall be
happy and satisfied? But the very question we are considering was that of facing death which (so far
as the Innovator knows) cuts off every possible satisfaction: and if we have an instinctive desire for
the good of posterity then this desire, by the very nature of the case, can never be satisfied, since its
aim is achieved, if at all, when we are dead. It looks very much as if the Innovator would have to say
not that we must obey Instinct, nor that it will satisfy us to do so, but that we ought to obey it.2
But why ought we to obey Instinct? Is there another instinct of a higher order directing us to do so,
and a third of a still higher order directing us to obey it?—an infinite regress of instincts? This is
presumably impossible, but nothing else will serve. From the statement about psychological fact 'I
have an impulse to do so and so' we cannot by any ingenuity derive the practical principle 'I ought to
obey this impulse'. Even if it were true that men had a spontaneous, unreflective impulse to sacrifice
their own lives for the preservation of their fellows, it remains a quite separate question whether this
is an impulse they should control or one they should indulge. For even the Innovator admits that
many impulses (those which conflict with the preservation of the species) have to be controlled. And
this admission surely introduces us to a yet more fundamental difficulty.
Telling us to obey Instinct is like telling us to obey 'people'. People say different things: so do
instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should
always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To
listen to that instinct speaking in its own cause and deciding it in its own favour would be rather
simple-minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the
rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If
we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we
could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be
one of the parties judged; or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing the
preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite.
The idea that, without appealing to any court higher than the instincts themselves, we can yet find
grounds for preferring one instinct above its fellows dies very hard. We grasp at useless words: we
call it the 'basic', or 'fundamental', or 'primal', or 'deepest' instinct. It is of no avail. Either these
words conceal a value judgement passed upon the instinct and therefore not derivable from it, or else
they merely record its felt intensity, the frequency of its operation and its wide distribution. If the
former, the whole attempt to base value upon instinct has been abandoned: if the latter, these
observations about the quantitative aspects of a psychological event lead to no practical conclusion.
It is the old dilemma. Either the premisses already concealed an imperative or the conclusion
remains merely in the indicative.3
Finally, it is worth inquiry whether there is any instinct to care for posterity or preserve the species. I
do not discover it in myself: and yet I am a man rather prone to think of remote futurity—a man who
can read Mr Olaf Stapledon with delight. Much less do I find it easy to believe that the majority of
people who have sat opposite me in buses or stood with me in queues feel an unreflective impulse to
do anything at all about the species, or posterity. Only people educated in a particular way have ever
had the idea 'posterity' before their minds at all. It is difficult to assign to instinct our attitude towards
an object which exists only for reflective men. What we have by nature is an impulse to preserve our
own children and grandchildren; an impulse which grows progressively feebler as the imagination
looks forward and finally dies out in the 'deserts of vast futurity'. No parents who were guided by
this instinct would dream for a moment of setting up the claims of their hypothetical descendants
against those of the baby actually crowing and kicking in the room. Those of us who accept the Tao
may, perhaps, say that they ought to do so: but that is not open to those who treat instinct as the
source of value. As we pass from mother love to rational planning for the future we are passing away
from the realm of instinct into that of choice and reflection: and if instinct is the source of value,
planning for the future ought to be less respectable and less obligatory than the baby language and
cuddling of the fondest mother or the most fatuous nursery anecdotes of a doting father. If we are to
base ourselves upon instinct, these things are the substance, and care for posterity the shadow—the
huge, flickering shadow of the nursery happiness cast upon the screen of the unknown future. I do
not say this projection is a bad thing: but then I do not believe that instinct is the ground of value
judgements. What is absurd is to claim that your care for posterity finds its justification in instinct
and then flout at every turn the only instinct on which it could be supposed to rest, tearing the child
almost from the breast to creche and kindergarten in the interests of progress and the coming race.
The truth finally becomes apparent that neither in any operation with factual propositions nor in any
appeal to instinct can the Innovator find the basis for a system of values. None of the principles he
requires are to be found there: but they are all to be found somewhere else. 'All within the four seas
are his brothers' (xii. 5) says Confucius of the Chün-tzu, the cuor gentil or gentleman. Humani nihil a
me alienum puto says the Stoic. 'Do as you would be done by,' says Jesus. 'Humanity is to be
preserved,' says Locke.4 All the practical principles behind the Innovator's case for posterity, or
society, or the species, are there from time immemorial in the Tao. But they are nowhere else.
Unless you accept these without question as being to the world of action what axioms are to the
world of theory, you can have no practical principles whatever. You cannot reach them as
conclusions: they are premisses. You may, since they can give no 'reason' for themselves of a kind to
silence Gaius and Titius, regard them as sentiments: but then you must give up contrasting 'real' or
'rational' value with sentimental value. All value will be sentimental; and you must confess (on pain
of abandoning every value) that all sentiment is not 'merely' subjective. You may, on the other hand,
regard them as rational—nay as rationality itself—as things so obviously reasonable that they neither
demand nor admit proof. But then you must allow that Reason can be practical, that an ought must
not be dismissed because it cannot produce some is as its credential. If nothing is self-evident,
nothing can be proved. Similarly if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all.
To some it will appear that I have merely restored under another name what they always meant by
basic or fundamental instinct. But much more than a choice of words is involved. The Innovator
attacks traditional values (the Tao) in defence of what he at first supposes to be (in some special
sense) 'rational' or 'biological' values. But as we have seen, all the values which he uses in attacking
the Tao, and even claims to be substituting for it, are themselves derived from the Tao. If he had
really started from scratch, from right outside the human tradition of value, no jugglery could have
advanced him an inch towards the conception that a man should die for the community or work for
posterity. If the Tao falls, all his own conceptions of value fall with it. Not one of them can claim
any authority other than that of the Tao. Only by such shreds of the Tao as he has inherited is he
enabled even to attack it. The question therefore arises what title he has to select bits of it for
acceptance and to reject others. For if the bits he rejects have no authority, neither have those he
retains: if what he retains is valid, what he rejects is equally valid too.
The Innovator, for example, rates high the claims of posterity. He cannot get any valid claim for
posterity out of instinct or (in the modern sense) reason. He is really deriving our duty to posterity
from the Tao; our duty to do good to all men is an axiom of Practical Reason, and our duty to do
good to our descendants is a clear deduction from it. But then, in every form of the Tao which has
come down to us, side by side with the duty to children and descendants lies the duty to parents and
ancestors. By what right do we reject one and accept the other? Again, the Innovator may place
economic value first. To get people fed and clothed is the great end, and in pursuit of its scruples
about justice and good faith may be set aside. The Tao of course agrees with him about the
importance of getting the people fed and clothed. Unless the Innovator were himself using the Tao
he could never have learned of such a duty. But side by side with it in the Tao lie those duties of
justice and good faith which he is ready to debunk. What is his warrant? He may be a Jingoist, a
Racialist, an extreme nationalist, who maintains that the advancement of his own people is the object
to which all else ought to yield. But no kind of factual observation and no appeal to instinct will give
him a ground for this option. Once more, he is in fact deriving it from the Tao: a duty to our own
kin, because they are our own kin, is a part of traditional morality. But side by side with it in the
Tao, and limiting it, lie the inflexible demands of justice, and the rule that, in the long run, all men
are our brothers. Whence comes the Innovator's authority to pick and choose?
Since I can see no answer to these questions, I draw the following conclusions. This thing which I
have called for convenience the Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality
or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of
possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all value is
rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value
in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgement
of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them)
'ideologies', all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in
the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone
such validity as they possess. If my duty to my parents is a superstition, then so is my duty to
posterity. If justice is a superstition, then so is my duty to my country or my race. If the pursuit of
scientific knowledge is a real value, then so is conjugal fidelity. The rebellion of new ideologies
against the Tao is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would
find that they had destroyed themselves. The human mind has no more power of inventing a new
value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it
to move in.
Does this mean, then, that no progress in our perceptions of value can ever take place? That we are
bound down for ever to an unchanging code given once for all? And is it, in any event, possible to
talk of obeying what I call the Tao? If we lump together, as I have done, the traditional moralities of
East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew, shall we not find many contradictions and
some absurdities? I admit all this. Some criticism, some removal of contradictions, even some real
development, is required. But there are two very different kinds of criticism.
A theorist about language may approach his native tongue, as it were from outside, regarding its
genius as a thing that has no claim on him and advocating wholesale alterations of its idiom and
spelling in the interests of commercial convenience or scientific accuracy. That is one thing. A great
poet, who has 'loved, and been well nurtured in, his mother tongue', may also make great alterations
in it, but his changes of the language are made in the spirit of the language itself: he works from
within. The language which suffers, has also inspired the changes. That is a different thing—as
different as the works of Shakespeare are from Basic English. It is the difference between alteration
from within and alteration from without: between the organic and the surgical. In the same way, the
Tao admits development from within. There is a difference between a real moral advance and a mere
innovation. From the Confucian 'Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you' to
the Christian 'Do as you would be done by' is a real advance. The morality of Nietzsche is a mere
innovation. The first is an advance because no one who did not admit the validity of the old maxim
could see reason for accepting the new one, and anyone who accepted the old would at once
recognize the new as an extension of the same principle. If he rejected it, he would have to reject it
as a superfluity, something that went too far, not as something simply heterogeneous from his own
ideas of value. But the Nietzschean ethic can be accepted only if we are ready to scrap traditional
morals as a mere error and then to put ourselves in a position where we can find no ground for any
value judgements at all. It is the difference between a man who says to us: 'You like your vegetables
moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?' and a man who says,
'Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead.'
Those who understand the spirit of the Tao and who have been led by that spirit can modify it in
directions which that spirit itself demands. Only they can know what those directions are. The
outsider knows nothing about the matter. His attempts at alteration, as we have seen, contradict
themselves. So far from being able to harmonize discrepancies in its letter by penetration to its spirit,
he merely snatches at some one precept, on which the accidents of time and place happen to have
riveted his attention, and then rides it to death—for no reason that he can give. From within the Tao
itself comes the only authority to modify the Tao. This is what Confucius meant when he said 'With
those who follow a different Way it is useless to take counsel'.5 This is why Aristotle said that only
those who have been well brought up can usefully study ethics: to the corrupted man, the man who
stands outside the Tao, the very starting point of this science is invisible.6 He may be hostile, but he
cannot be critical: he does not know what is being discussed. This is why it was also said 'This
people that knoweth not the Law is accursed'7 and 'He that believeth not shall be damned'.8 An open
mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations
either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his
mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for
criticizing either the Tao or anything else. In particular instances it may, no doubt, be a matter of
some delicacy to decide where the legitimate internal criticism ends and the fatal external kind
begins. But wherever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its
credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position. The legitimate
reformer endeavours to show that the precept in question conflicts with some precept which its
defenders allow to be more fundamental, or that it does not really embody the judgement of value it
professes to embody. The direct frontal attack 'Why?'—'What good does it do?'—'Who said so?' is
never permissible; not because it is harsh or offensive but because no values at all can justify
themselves on that level. If you persist in that kind of trial you will destroy all values, and so destroy
the bases of your own criticism as well as the thing criticized. You must not hold a pistol to the head
of the Tao. Nor must we postpone obedience to a precept until its credentials have been examined.
Only those who are practising the Tao will understand it. It is the well-nurtured man, the cuor gentil,
and he alone, who can recognize Reason when it comes.9 It is Paul, the Pharisee, the man 'perfect as
touching the Law' who learns where and how that Law was deficient.10 In order to avoid
misunderstanding, I may add that though I myself am a Theist, and indeed a Christian, I am not here
attempting any indirect argument for Theism. I am simply arguing that if we are to have values at all
we must accept the ultimate platitudes of Practical Reason as having absolute validity: that any
attempt, having become sceptical about these, to reintroduce value lower down on some supposedly
more 'realistic' basis, is doomed. Whether this position implies a supernatural origin for the Tao is a
question I am not here concerned with.
Yet how can the modern mind be expected to embrace the conclusion we have reached? This Tao
which, it seems, we must treat as an absolute is simply a phenomenon like any other—the reflection
upon the minds of our ancestors of the agricultural rhythm in which they lived or even of their
physiology. We know already in principle how such things are produced: soon we shall know in
detail: eventually we shall be able to produce them at will. Of course, while we did not know how
minds were made, we accepted this mental furniture as a datum, even as a master. But many things
in nature which were once our masters have become our servants. Why not this? Why must our
conquest of nature stop short, in stupid reverence, before this final and toughest bit of 'nature' which
has hitherto been called the conscience of man? You threaten us with some obscure disaster if we
step outside it: but we have been threatened in that way by obscurantists at every step in our
advance, and each time the threat has proved false. You say we shall have no values at all if we step
outside the Tao. Very well: we shall probably find that we can get on quite comfortably without
them. Let us regard all ideas of what we ought to do simply as an interesting psychological survival:
let us step right out of all that and start doing what we like. Let us decide for ourselves what man is
to be and make him into that: not on any ground of imagined value, but because we want him to be
such. Having mastered our environment, let us now master ourselves and choose our own destiny.
This is a very possible position: and those who hold it cannot be accused of self-contradiction like
the half-hearted sceptics who still hope to find 'real' values when they have debunked the traditional
ones. This is the rejection of the concept of value altogether. I shall need another lecture to consider
it.
Next: THE ABOLUTION OF MAN
Prev: MEN WITHOUT CHESTS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
Men Without Chests
The Way
The Abolition of Man
Appendix-Illustrations of the Tao
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------NOTES
1 The real (perhaps unconscious) philosophy of Gaius and Titius becomes clear if we contrast the
two following lists of disapprovals and approvals.
A. Disapprovals: A mother's appeal to a child to be 'brave' is 'nonsense' (Green Book, p. 62). The
reference of the word 'gentleman' is 'extremely vague' (ibid.) 'To call a man a coward tells us really
nothing about what he does' (p. 64). Feelings about a country or empire are feelings 'about nothing in
particular' (p. 77).
B. Approvals: Those who prefer the arts of peace to the arts of war (it is not said in what
circumstances) are such that 'we may want to call them wise men' (p. 65). The pupil is expected 'to
believe in a democratic community life' (p. 67). 'Contact with the ideas of other people is, as we
know, healthy' (p. 86). The reason for bathrooms ('that people are healthier and pleasanter to meet
when they are clean') is 'too obvious to need mentioning' (p. 142). It will be seen that comfort and
security, as known to a suburban street in peace-time, are the ultimate values: those things which can
alone produce or spiritualize comfort and security are mocked. Man lives by bread alone, and the
ultimate source of bread is the baker's van: peace matters more than honour and can be preserved by
jeering at colonels and reading newspapers.
2 The most determined effort which I know to construct a theory of value on the basis of 'satisfaction
of impulses' is that of Dr I. A. Richards (Principles of Literary Criticism, 1924). The old objection to
defining Value as Satisfaction is the universal value judgement that 'it is better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a pig satisfied'. To meet this Dr Richards endeavours to show that our impulses can
be arranged in a hierarchy and some satisfactions preferred to others without an appeal to any
criterion other than satisfaction. He does this by the doctrine that some impulses are more 'important'
than others—an important impulse being one whose frustration involves the frustration of other
impulses. A good systematization (i.e. the good life) consists in satisfying as many impulses as
possible; which entails satisfying the 'important' at the expense of the 'unimportant'. The objections
to this scheme seem to me to be two:
(I) Without a theory of immortality it leaves no room for the value of noble death. It may, of course,
be said that a man who has saved his life by treachery will suffer for the rest of that life from
frustration. But not, surely, frustration of all his impulses? Whereas the dead man will have no
satisfaction. Or is it maintained that since he had no unsatisfied impulses he is better off than the
disgraced and living man? This at once raises the second objection.
(2) Is the value of a systematization to be judged by the presence of satisfactions or the absence of
dissatisfactions? The extreme case is that of the dead man in whom satisfactions and dissatisfactions
(on the modern view) both equal zero, as against the successful traitor who can still eat, drink, sleep,
scratch and copulate, even if he cannot have friendship or love or self-respect. But it arises at other
levels. Suppose A has only 500 impulses and all are satisfied, and that B has 1200 impulses whereof
700 are satisfied and 500 not: which has the better systematization? There is no doubt which Dr
Richards actually prefers—he even praises art on the ground that it makes us 'discontented' with
ordinary crudities! (op. cit., p. 230). The only trace I find of a philosophical basis for this preference
is the statement that 'the more complex an activity the more conscious it is' (p. 109). But if
satisfaction is the only value, why should increase of consciousness be good? For consciousness is
the condition of all dissatisfactions as well as of all satisfactions. Dr Richards's system gives no
support to his (and our) actual preference for civil life over savage and human over animal—or even
for life over death.
3 The desperate expedients to which a man can be driven if he attempts to base value on fact are well
illustrated by Dr C. H. Waddington's fate in Science and Ethics. Dr Waddington here explains that
'existence is its own justification' (p. 14), and writes: 'An existence which is essentially evolutionary
is itself the justification for an evolution towards a more comprehensive existence' (p. 17). I do not
think Dr Waddington is himself at ease in this view, for he does endeavour to recommend the course
of evolution to us on three grounds other than its mere occurrence, (a) That the later stages include
or 'comprehend' the earlier, (b) That T. H. Huxley's picture of Evolution will not revolt you if you
regard it from an 'actuarial' point of view, (c) That, any way, after all, it isn't half so bad as people
make out ('not so morally offensive that we cannot accept it', p. 18). These three palliatives are more
creditable to Dr Waddington's heart than his head and seem to me to give up the main position. If
Evolution is praised (or, at least, apologized for) on the ground of any properties it exhibits, then we
are using an external standard and the attempt to make existence its own justification has been
abandoned. If that attempt is maintained, why does Dr Waddington concentrate on Evolution: i.e., on
a temporary phase of organic existence in one planet? This is 'geocentric'. If Good = 'whatever
Nature happens to be doing', then surely we should notice what Nature is doing as a whole; and
Nature as a whole, I understand, is working steadily and irreversibly towards the final extinction of
all life in every part of the universe, so that Dr Waddington's ethics, stripped of their unaccountable
bias towards such a parochial affair as tellurian biology, would leave murder and suicide our only
duties. Even this, I confess, seems to me a lesser objection than the discrepancy between Dr
Waddington's first principle and the value judgements men actually make. To value anything simply
because it occurs is in fact to worship success, like Quislings or men of Vichy. Other philosophies
more wicked have been devised: none more vulgar. I am far from suggesting that Dr Waddington
practises in real life such grovelling prostration before the fait accompli. Let us hope that Rasselas,
chap. 22, gives the right picture of what his philosophy amounts to in action. ('The philosopher,
supposing the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with
the present system.')
4 See Appendix.
5 Analects of Confucius, xv. 39.
6 Eth. Nic. 1095 b, 1140 b, 1151 a.
7 John 7:49. The speaker said it in malice, but with more truth than he meant. Cf. John 13:51.
8 Mark 16:6
9 Republic, 402 A
10 Philippians 3:6
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Transcriber's Notes
Cuor gentil - a noble heart
'εν δε φαει και 'δλεσσου - 'en de faei kai dlessou' roughly "in the light you perceive it [light]" (?)
Dulce et decorum - sweet and seemly, from the Roman saying dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
It is sweet and seemly to die for one's country.
Humani nihil a me alienum puto from Terence: homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto: "I am a
man; and nothing of man is foreign to me."
Nietzschean ethic - an 'ends justify the means,' 'win at any cost' philosophy; the starting point his
philosophy is his own desire instead of reality; he is a nihilist.
Olaf Stapledon - a famous science fiction writer (1886-1950) whose most famous works include Last
and First Men, Darkness and the Light, and Star Maker.
Theist - a believer in one or more gods, e.g. Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Zoroastrians
Chapter 3
The Abolition of Man
It came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said and however he flattered, when he got me home
to his house, he would sell me for a slave.
—John Bunyan
`Man's conquest of Nature' is an expression often used to describe the progress of applied science.
`Man has Nature whacked,' said someone to a friend of mine not long ago. In their context the words
had a certain tragic beauty, for the speaker was dying of tuberculosis. `No matter' he said, `I know
I'm one of the casualties. Of course there are casualties on the winning as well as on the losing side.
But that doesn't alter the fact that it is winning.' I have chosen this story as my point of departure in
order to make it clear that I do not wish to disparage all that is really beneficial in the process
described as `Man's conquest', much less all the real devotion and self-sacrifice that has gone to
make it possible. But having done so I must proceed to analyse this conception a little more closely.
In what sense is Man the possessor of increasing power over Nature?
Let us consider three typical examples: the aeroplane, the wireless, and the contraceptive. In a
civilized community, in peace-time, anyone who can pay for them may use these things. But it
cannot strictly be said that when he does so he is exercising his own proper or individual power over
Nature. If I pay you to carry me, I am not therefore myself a strong man. Any or all of the three
things I have mentioned can be withheld from some men by other men—by those who sell, or those
who allow the sale, or those who own the sources of production, or those who make the goods. What
we call Man's power is, in reality, a power possessed by some men which they may, or may not,
allow other men to profit by. Again, as regards the powers manifested in the aeroplane or the
wireless, Man is as much the patient or subject as the possessor, since he is the target both for bombs
and for propaganda. And as regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which
all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive.
By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective
breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own
reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point of view, what we call Man's power over Nature turns
out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.
It is, of course, a commonplace to complain that men have hitherto used badly, and against their
fellows, the powers that science has given them, But that is not the point I am trying to make. I am
not speaking of particular corruptions and abuses which an increase of moral virtue would cure: I am
considering what the thing called `Man's power over Nature' must always and essentially be. No
doubt, the picture could be modified by public ownership of raw materials and factories and public
control of scientific research. But unless we have a world state this will still mean the power of one
nation over others. And even within the world state or the nation it will mean (in principle) the
power of majorities over minorities, and (in the concrete) of a government over the people. And all
long-term exercises of power, especially in breeding, must mean the power of earlier generations
over later ones.
The latter point is not always sufficiently emphasized, because those who write on social matters
have not yet learned to imitate the physicists by always including Time among the dimensions. In
order to understand fully what Man's power over Nature, and therefore the power of some men over
other men, really means, we must picture the race extended in time from the date of its emergence to
that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it
modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of
its predecessors. This modifies the picture which is sometimes painted of a progressive emancipation
from tradition and a progressive control of natural processes resulting in a continual increase of
human power. In reality, of course, if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific
education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the
patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful
machines in their hands we have pre-ordained how they are to use them. And if, as is almost certain,
the age which had thus attained maximum power over posterity were also the age most emancipated
from tradition, it would be engaged in reducing the power of its predecessors almost as drastically as
that of its successors. And we must also remember that, quite apart from this, the later a generation
comes—the nearer it lives to that date at which the species becomes extinct—the less power it will
have in the forward direction, because its subjects will be so few. There is therefore no question of a
power vested in the race as a whole steadily growing as long as the race survives. The last men, far
from being the heirs of power, will be of all men most subject to the dead hand of the great planners
and conditioners and will themselves exercise least power upon the future.
The real picture is that of one dominant age—let us suppose the hundredth century A.D.—which
resists all previous ages most successfully and dominates all subsequent ages most irresistibly, and
thus is the real master of the human species. But then within this master generation (itself an
infinitesimal minority of the species) the power will be exercised by a minority smaller still. Man's
conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few
hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase
of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance
leaves him weaker as well aas stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he
is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car.
I am not yet considering whether the total result of such ambivalent victories is a good thing or a
bad. I am only making clear what Man's conquest of Nature really means and especially that final
stage in the conquest, which, perhaps, is not far off. The final stage is come when Man by eugenics,
by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied
psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to
surrender to Man. The battle will then be won. We shall have `taken the thread of life out of the hand
of Clotho' and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will
indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?
For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some
men to make other men what they please. In all ages, no doubt, nurture and instruction have, in some
sense, attempted to exercise this power. But the situation to which we must look forward will be
novel in two respects. In the first place, the power will be enormously increased. Hitherto the plans
of educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted and indeed, when we read them—
how Plato would have every infant "a bastard nursed in a bureau", and Elyot would have the boy see
no men before the age of seven and, after that, no women,1 and how Locke wants children to have
leaky shoes and no turn for poetry2—we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers,
real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still
possesses. But the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an
omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of
conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.
The second difference is even more important. In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers
wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao—a norm to
which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart. They
did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they
initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It
was but old birds teaching young birds to fly. This will be changed. Values are now mere natural
phenomena. Judgements of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning.
Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive, of education. The conditioners have been
emancipated from all that. It is one more part of Nature which they have conquered. The ultimate
springs of human action are no longer, for them, something given. They have surrendered—like
electricity: it is the function of the Conditioners to control, not to obey them. They know how to
produce conscience and decide what kind of conscience they will produce. They themselves are
outside, above. For we are assuming the last stage of Man's struggle with Nature. The final victory
has been won. Human nature has been conquered—and, of course, has conquered, in whatever sense
those words may now bear.
The Conditioners, then, are to choose what kind of artificial Tao they will, for their own good
reasons, produce in the Human race. They are the motivators, the creators of motives. But how are
they going to be motivated themselves?
For a time, perhaps, by survivals, within their own minds, of the old `natural' Tao. Thus at first they
may look upon themselves as servants and guardians of humanity and conceive that they have a
`duty' to do it `good'. But it is only by confusion that they can remain in this state. They recognize
the concept of duty as the result of certain processes which they can now control. Their victory has
consisted precisely in emerging from the state in which they were acted upon by those processes to
the state in which they use them as tools. One of the things they now have to decide is whether they
will, or will not, so condition the rest of us that we can go on having the old idea of duty and the old
reactions to it. How can duty help them to decide that? Duty itself is up for trial: it cannot also be the
judge. And `good' fares no better. They know quite well how to produce a dozen different
conceptions of good in us. The question is which, if any, they should produce. No conception of
good can help them to decide. It is absurd to fix on one of the things they are comparing and make it
the standard of comparison.
To some it will appear that I am inventing a factitious difficulty for my Conditioners. Other, more
simple-minded, critics may ask, `Why should you suppose they will be such bad men?' But I am not
supposing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you
like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves
to the task of deciding what `Humanity' shall henceforth mean. `Good' and `bad', applied to them,
are words without content: for it is from them that the content of these words is henceforward to be
derived. Nor is their difficulty factitious, "We might suppose that it was possible to say `After all,
most of us want more or less the same things—food and drink and sexual intercourse, amusement,
art, science, and the longest possible life for individuals and for the species. Let them simply say,
This is what we happen to like, and go on to condition men in the way most likely to produce it.
Where's the trouble?' But this will not answer. In the first place, it is false that we all really like the
same things. But even if we did, what motive is to impel the Conditioners to scorn delights and live
laborious days in order that we, and posterity, may have what we like? Their duty? But that is only
the Tao, which they may decide to impose on us, but which cannot be valid for them. If they accept
it, then they are no longer the makers of conscience but still its subjects, and their final conquest over
Nature has not really happened. The preservation of the species? But why should the species be
preserved? One of the questions before them is whether this feeling for posterity (they know well
how it is produced) shall be continued or not. However far they go back, or down, they can find no
ground to stand on. Every motive they try to act on becomes at once petitio. It is not that they are
bad men. They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void. Nor are
their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all: they are artefacts. Man's final
conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.
Yet the Conditioners will act. When I said just now that all motives fail them, I should have said all
motives except one. All motives that claim any validity other than that of their felt emotional weight
at a given moment have failed them. Everything except the sic volo, sic jubeo has been explained
away. But what never claimed objectivity cannot be destroyed by subjectivism. The impulse to
scratch when I itch or to pull to pieces when I am inquisitive is immune from the solvent which is
fatal to my justice, or honour, or care for posterity. When all that says It is good' has been debunked,
what says 1 want' remains. It cannot be exploded or `seen through' because it never had any
pretentions. The Conditioners, therefore, must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. I
am not here speaking of the corrupting influence of power nor expressing the fear that under it our
Conditioners will degenerate. The very words corrupt and degenerate imply a doctrine of value and
are therefore meaningless in this context. My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of
value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the
emotional strength of that impulse.
We may legitimately hope that among the impulses which arise in minds thus emptied of all
`rational' or `spiritual' motives, some will be benevolent. I am very doubtful myself whether the
benevolent impulses, stripped of that preference and encouragement which the Tao teaches us to
give them and left to their merely natural strength and frequency as psychological events, will have
much influence. I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having
stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently. I am
inclined to think that the Conditioners will hate the conditioned. Though regarding as an illusion the
artificial conscience which they produce in us their subjects, they will yet perceive that it creates in
us an illusion of meaning for our lives which compares favourably with the futility of their own: and
they will envy us as eunuchs envy men. But I do not insist on this, for it is a mere conjecture. What
is not conjecture is that our hope even of a `conditioned' happiness rests on what is ordinarily called
`chance'—the chance that benevolent impulses may on the whole predominate in our Conditioners.
For without the judgement `Benevolence is good'—that is, without re-entering the Tao—they can
have no ground for promoting or stabilizing these impulses rather than any others. By the logic of
their position they must just take their impulses as they come, from chance. And Chance here means
Nature. It is from heredity, digestion, the weather, and the association of ideas, that the motives of
the Conditioners will spring. Their extreme rationalism, by `seeing through' all `rational' motives,
leaves them creatures of wholly irrational behaviour. If you will not obey the Tao, or else commit
suicide, obedience to impulse (and therefore, in the long run, to mere `nature') is the only course left
open.
At the moment, then, of Man's victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some
individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely `natural'—to
their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammelled by values, rules the Conditioners and, through them,
all humanity. Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's
conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All
Nature's apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back
when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening
of arms to enfold us for ever. If the fully planned and conditioned world (with its Tao a mere product
of the planning) comes into existence, Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that
rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of
truth and mercy and beauty and happiness. Ferum victorem cepit: and if the eugenics are efficient
enough there will be no second revolt, but all snug beneath the Conditioners, and the Conditioners
beneath her, till the moon falls or the sun grows cold.
My point may be clearer to some if it is put in a different form. Nature is a word of varying
meanings, which can best be understood if we consider itsvarious opposites. The Natural is the
opposite of the Artificial, the Civil, the Human, the Spiritual, and the Supernatural. The Artificial
does not now concern us. If we take the rest of the list of opposites, however, I think we can get a
rough idea of what men have meant by Nature and what it is they oppose to her. Nature seems to be
the spatial and temporal, as distinct from what is less fully so or not so at all. She seems to be the
world of quantity, as against the world of quality; of objects as against consciousness; of the bound,
as against the wholly or partially autonomous; of that which knows no values as against that which
both has and perceives value; of efficient causes (or, in some modern systems, of no causality at all)
as against final causes. Now I take it that when we understand a thing analytically and then dominate
and use it for our own convenience, we reduce it to the level of `Nature' in the sense that we suspend
our judgements of value about it, ignore its final cause (if any), and treat it in terms of quantity. This
repression of elements in what would otherwise be our total reaction to it is sometimes very
noticeable and even painful: something has to be overcome before we can cut up a dead man or a
live animal in a dissecting room. These objects resist the movement of the mind whereby we thrust
them into the world of mere Nature. But in other instances too, a similar price is exacted for our
analytical knowledge and manipulative power, even if we have ceased to count it. We do not look at
trees either as Dryads or as beautiful objects while we cut them into beams: the first man who did so
may have felt the price keenly, and the bleeding trees in Virgil and Spenser may be far-off echoes of
that primeval sense of impiety. The stars lost their divinity as astronomy developed, and the Dying
God has no place in chemical agriculture. To many, no doubt, this process is simply the gradual
discovery that the real world is different from what we expected, and the old opposition to Galileo or
to `body-snatchers' is simply obscurantism. But that is not the whole story. It is not the greatest of
modern scientists who feel most sure that the object, stripped of its qualitative properties and
reduced to mere quantity, is wholly real. Little scientists, and little unscientific followers of science,
may think so. The great minds know very well that the object, so treated, is an artificial abstraction,
that something of its reality has been lost.
From this point of view the conquest of Nature appears in a new light. We reduce things to mere
Nature in order that we may `conquer' them. We are always conquering Nature, because `Nature' is
the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered. The price of conquest is to treat a thing as
mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till
we can weigh and measure them: the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyse her.
The wresting of powers from Nature is also the surrendering of things to Nature. As long as this
process stops short of the final stage we may well hold that the gain outweighs the loss. But as soon
as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of mere Nature, the whole process
is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has been sacrificed are one
and the same. This is one of the many instances where to carry a principle to what seems its logical
conclusion produces absurdity. It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove
reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him
to warm his house with no fuel at all. It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in
return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not
belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. It
is in Man's power to treat himself as a mere `natural object' and his own judgements of value as raw
material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. The objection to his doing so does not lie in the
fact that this point of view (like one's first day in a dissecting room) is painful and shocking till we
grow used to it. The pain and the shock are at most a warning and a symptom. The real objection is
that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be
manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the
person of his de-humanized Conditioners.
We have been trying, like Lear, to have it both ways: to lay down our human prerogative and yet at
the same time to retain it. It is impossible. Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever to obey the
absolute values of the Tao, or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the
pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have no motive but their own `natural' impulses. Only
the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike. A
dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an
obedience which is not slavery.
I am not here thinking solely, perhaps not even chiefly, of those who are our public enemies at the
moment. The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists
and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many
a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our
midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany/Traditional values are to be
`debunked' and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis,
be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do
it. The belief that we can invent `ideologies' at pleasure, and the consequent treatment of mankind as
mere υλη, specimens, preparations, begins to affect our very language. Once we killed bad men: now
we liquidate unsocial elements. Virtue has become integration and diligence dynamism, and boys
likely to be worthy of a commission are `potential officer material'. Most wonderful of all, the
virtues of thrift and temperance, and even of ordinary intelligence, are sales-resistance.
The true significance of what is going on has been concealed by the use of the abstraction Man. Not
that the word Man is necessarily a pure abstraction. In the Tao itself, as long as we remain within it,
we find the concrete reality in which to participate is to be truly human: the real common will and
common reason of humanity, alive, and growing like a tree, and branching out, as the situation
varies, into ever new beauties and dignities of application. While we speak from within the Tao we
can speak of Man having power over himself in a sense truly analogous to an individual's selfcontrol. But the moment we step outside and regard the Tao as a mere subjective product, this
possibility has disappeared. What is now common to all men is a mere abstract universal, an H.C.F.,
and Man's conquest of himself means simply the rule of the Conditioners over the conditioned
human material, the world of post-humanity which, some knowingly and some unknowingly, nearly
all men in all nations are at present labouring to produce.
Nothing I can say will prevent some people from describing this lecture as an attack on science. I
deny the charge, of course: and real Natural Philosophers (there are some now alive) will perceive
that in defending value I defend inter alia the value of knowledge, which must die like every other
when its roots in the Tao are cut. But I can go further than that. I even suggest that from Science
herself the cure might come.
I have described as a `magician's bargain' that process whereby man surrenders object after object,
and finally himself, to Nature in return for power. And I meant what I said. The fact that the scientist
has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular
thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who
write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing
that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little
magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The
serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died,
the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that
some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we
consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom
of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to
reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied
science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique;
and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and
impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead.
If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe's Faustus, the similarity is
striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality, he hardly
mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls. `All things that
move between the quiet poles shall be at his command' and `a sound magician is a mighty god'.3 In
the same spirit Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself: this, for him, is to
use as a mistress for pleasure what ought to be a spouse for fruit.4 The true object is to extend Man's
power to the performance of all things possible. He rejects magic because it does not work;5 but his
goal is that of the magician. In Paracelsus the characters of magician and scientist are combined. No
doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded
their love of power; in every mixed movement the efficacy comes from the good elements not from
the bad. But the presence of the bad elements is not irrelevant to the direction the efficacy takes. It
might be going too far to say that the modern scientific movement was tainted from its birth: but I
think it would be true to say that it, was born in an unhealthy neighbourhood and at an inauspicious
hour. Its triumphs may have-been too rapid and purchased at too high a price: reconsideration, and
something like repentance, may be required.
Is it, then, possible to imagine a new Natural Philosophy, continually conscious that the `natural
object' produced by analysis and abstraction is not reality but only a view, and always correcting the
abstraction? I hardly know what I am asking for. I hear rumours that Goethe's approach to nature
deserves fuller consideration—that even Dr Steiner may have seen something that orthodox
researchers have missed. The regenerate science which I have in mind would not do even to minerals
and vegetables what modern science threatens to do to man himself. When it explained it would not
explain away. When it spoke of the parts it would remember the whole. While studying the It it
would not lose what Martin Buber calls the Thou-situation. The analogy between the Tao of Man
and the instincts of an animal species would mean for it new light cast on the unknown thing,
Instinct, by the only known reality of conscience and not a reduction of conscience to the category of
Instinct. Its followers would not be free with the words only and merely. In a word, it would conquer
Nature without being at the same time conquered by her and buy knowledge at a lower cost than that
of life.
Perhaps I am asking impossibilities. Perhaps, in the nature of things, analytical understanding must
always be a basilisk which kills what it sees and only sees by killing. But if the scientists themselves
cannot arrest this process before it reaches the common Reason and kills that too, then someone else
must arrest it. What I most fear is the reply that I am `only one more' obscurantist, that this barrier,
like all previous barriers set up against the advance of science, can be safely passed. Such a reply
springs from the fatal serialism of the modern imagination—the image of infinite unilinear
progression which so haunts our minds. Because we have to use numbers so much we tend to think
of every process as if it must be like the numeral series, where every step, to all eternity, is the same
kind of step as the one before. I implore you to remember the Irishman and his two stoves. There are
progressions in which the last step is sui generis—incommensurable with the others—and in which
to go the whole way is to undo all the labour of your previous journey. To reduce the Tao to a mere
natural product is a step of that kind. Up to that point, the kind of explanation which explains things
away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on `explaining away' for
ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on `seeing
through5 things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through
it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque.
How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to `see through' first principles. If you see
through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible
world. To `see through' all things is the same as not to see.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
Men Without Chests
The Way
The Abolition of Man
Appendix-Illustrations of the Tao
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Notes
1. The Boke Named the Governour, I. iv: `Al men except physitions only shulde be excluded and
kepte out of the norisery.' I. vi: `After that a childe is come to seuen yeres of age... the most sure
counsaile is to withdrawe him from all company of women.'
2. Some Thoughts concerning Education,§7:1 will also advise his Feet to be wash'd every Day in
cold Water, and to have his Shoes so thin that they might leak and let in Water, whenever he comes
near it.' §174: `If he have a poetick vein, 'tis to me the strangest thing in the World that the Father
should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved. Methinks the Parents should labour to have it
stifled and suppressed as much as may be.' Yet Locke is one of our most sensible writers on
education.
3. Dr Faustus, 77-90.
4. Advancement of Learning, Bk I (p. 60 in Ellis and Spedding, 1905; p. 35 in Everyman Edition).
5. Filum Labyrinthi, i.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Transcriber's Notes
Buber, Martin (1878-1965) philosopher who said the I-Thou approach to relationships is the only
way people can be fully authentic; only a part of our humanity is expressed in the I-It relationship.
Clotho - of the three Fates of Greek mythology, she was the one who wove the fabric of life
factitious - contrived, artificial
Faustus - the magician of Renaisance legend who bargained his soul to the devil in exchange for
power
Ferum victorem cepit - from Horace Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et/ Artes intulit agresti
Latio.: "Greece, once overcome, overcame her wild conqueror,/ And brought the arts into rustic
Latium." The vanquished were actually the victors; Lewis is saying that nature, being conquered, is
the true winner.
Francis Bacon - proponent (1561-1626) of the "scientific revolution" who advocated science as a
tool to gain power over nature; he is known more for his polemical writings on science than his
advancement of human knowledge
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Romantic poet who reverenced nature as divine
H.C.F. - highest common factor
Inter alia - Amongst other things
Paracelsus - (1493-1541), more properly Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von
Hohenheim, who was known for his medical innovations during the Renaisance. Traditionally it has
been said that Paracelsus was taught by several bishops and the occultist abbot of Sponheim,
Johannes Trithemius.
Petitio - short for petitio principii or begging the question: a logical fallacy in which the thing to be
proved is implicitly assumed.
Sic volo, sic jubeo - short for sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas: "Thus I will, thus I
command, my pleasure stands for law."
Sui generis - adj. [literally, of its own kind] constituting a class alone: unique, peculiar.
υλη - hule or matter, as used by Aristotle
Wireless - radio
Appendix
Illustrations of the Tao
The following illustrations of the Natural Law are collected from such sources as come readily to the
hand of one who is not a professional historian. The list makes no pretence of completeness. It will
be noticed that writers such as Locke and Hooker, who wrote within the Christian tradition, are
quoted side by side with the New Testament. This would, of course, be absurd if I were trying to
collect independent testimonies to the Tao. But (1) I am not trying to prove its validity by the
argument from common consent. Its validity cannot be deduced. For those who do not perceive its
rationality, even universal consent could not prove it. (2) The idea of collecting independent
testimonies presupposes that 'civilizations' have arisen in the world independently of one another; or
even that humanity has had several independent emergences on this planet. The biology and
anthropology involved in such an assumption are extremely doubtful. It is by no means certain that
there has ever (in the sense required) been more than one civilization in all history. It is at least
arguable that every civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last
resort, from a single centre—'carried' like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession.
I. The Law of General Beneficence
(a) NEGATIVE
'I have not slain men.' (Ancient Egyptian. From the Confession of the Righteous Soul, 'Book of the
Dead', v. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics [= ERE], vol. v, p. 478)
'Do not murder.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:13)
'Terrify not men or God will terrify thee.' (Ancient Egyptian. Precepts of Ptahhetep. H. R. Hall,
Ancient History of the Near East, p. i3}n)
'In Nastrond (= Hell) I saw... murderers.' (Old Norse. Volospá 38, 39)
'I have not brought misery upon my fellows. I have not made the beginning of every day laborious in
the sight of him who worked for me.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v.
478)
'I have not been grasping.' (Ancient Egyptian. Ibid.) 'Who meditates oppression, his dwelling is
overturned.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)
'He who is cruel and calumnious has the character of a cat.' (Hindu. Laws of Manu. Janet, Histoire
de la Science Politique, vol. i, p. 6)
'Slander not.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)
'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:16)
'Utter not a word by which anyone could be wounded.' (Hindu. Janet, p. 7)
'Has he ... driven an honest man from his family? broken up a well cemented clan?' (Babylonian. List
of Sins from incantation tablets. ERE v. 446)
'I have not caused hunger. I have not caused weeping.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 478)
'Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects of
Confucius, trans. A. Waley, xv. 23; cf. xii. 2)
'Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:17)
'He whose heart is in the smallest degree set upon goodness will dislike no one.' (Ancient Chinese.
Analects, iv. 4)
(b) POSITIVE
'Nature urges that a man should wish human society to exist and should wish to enter it.' (Roman.
Cicero, De Officiis, i. iv)
'By the fundamental Law of Nature Man [is] to be preserved as much as possible.' (Locke, Treatises
of Civil Govt. ii. 3)
'When the people have multiplied, what next should be done for them? The Master said, Enrich
them. Jan Ch'iu said, When one has enriched them, what next should be done for them? The Master
said, Instruct them.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, xiii. 9)
'Speak kindness ... show good will.' (Babylonian. Hymn to Samas. ERE v. 445)
'Men were brought into existence for the sake of men that they might do one another good.' (Roman.
Cicero. De Off. i. vii)
'Man is man's delight.' (Old Norse. Hávamál 47)
'He who is asked for alms should always give.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 7)
'What good man regards any misfortune as no concern of his?' (Roman. Juvenal xv. 140)
'I am a man: nothing human is alien to me.' (Roman. Terence, Heaut. Tim.)
'Love thy neighbour as thyself.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:18)
'Love the stranger as thyself.' (Ancient Jewish. Ibid. 33, 34)
'Do to men what you wish men to do to you.' (Christian. Matthew 7:12)
2. The Law of Special Beneficence
'It is upon the trunk that a gentleman works. When that is firmly set up, the Way grows. And surely
proper behaviour to parents and elder brothers is the trunk of goodness.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects,
i. 2)
'Brothers shall fight and be each others' bane.' (Old Norse. Account of the Evil Age before the
World's end, Volospá 45)
'Has he insulted his elder sister?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)
'You will see them take care of their kindred [and] the children of their friends ... never reproaching
them in the least.' (Redskin. Le Jeune, quoted ERE v. 437)
'Love thy wife studiously. Gladden her heart all thy life long.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 481)
'Nothing can ever change the claims of kinship for a right thinking man.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf,
2600)
'Did not Socrates love his own children, though he did so as a free man and as one not forgetting that
the gods have the first claim on our friendship?' (Greek, Epictetus, iii. 24)
'Natural affection is a thing right and according to Nature.' (Greek. Ibid. i. xi)
'I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue but should fulfil both my natural and artificial relations, as a
worshipper, a son, a brother, a father, and a citizen.' (Greek. Ibid. 111. ii)
'This first I rede thee: be blameless to thy kindred. Take no vengeance even though they do thee
wrong.' (Old Norse. Sigdrifumál, 22)
'Is it only the sons of Atreus who love their wives? For every good man, who is right-minded, loves
and cherishes his own.' (Greek. Homer, Iliad, ix. 340)
'The union and fellowship of men will be best preserved if each receives from us the more kindness
in proportion as he is more closely connected with us.' (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. xvi)
'Part of us is claimed by our country, part by our parents, part by our friends.' (Roman. Ibid. i. vii)
'If a ruler ... compassed the salvation of the whole state, surely you would call him Good? The
Master said, It would no longer be a matter of "Good". He would without doubt be a Divine Sage.'
(Ancient Chinese. Analects, vi. 28)
'Has it escaped you that, in the eyes of gods and good men, your native land deserves from you more
honour, worship, and reverence than your mother and father and all your ancestors? That you should
give a softer answer to its anger than to a father's anger? That if you cannot persuade it to alter its
mind you must obey it in all quietness, whether it binds you or beats you or sends you to a war
where you may get wounds or death?' (Greek. Plato, Crito, 51, a, b)
'If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith.'
(Christian. I Timothy 5:8)
'Put them in mind to obey magistrates.'... 'I exhort that prayers be made for kings and all that are in
authority.' (Christian. Titus 3:1 and I Timothy 2:1, 2)
3. Duties to Parents, Elders, Ancestors
'Your father is an image of the Lord of Creation, your mother an image of the Earth. For him who
fails to honour them, every work of piety is in vain. This is the first duty.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 9)
'Has he despised Father and Mother?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)
'I was a staff by my Father's side ... I went in and out at his command.' (Ancient Egyptian.
Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 481)
'Honour thy Father and thy Mother.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:12)
'To care for parents.' (Greek. List of duties in Epictetus, in. vii)
'Children, old men, the poor, and the sick, should be considered as the lords of the atmosphere.'
(Hindu. Janet, i. 8)
'Rise up before the hoary head and honour the old man.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:32)
'I tended the old man, I gave him my staff.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 481)
'You will see them take care ... of old men.' (Redskin. Le Jeune, quoted ERE v. 437)
'I have not taken away the oblations of the blessed dead.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the
Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)
'When proper respect towards the dead is shown at the end and continued after they are far away, the
moral force (tê) of a people has reached its highest point.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, i. 9)
4. Duties to Children and Posterity
'Children, the old, the poor, etc. should be considered as lords of the atmosphere.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)
'To marry and to beget children.' (Greek. List of duties. Epictetus, in. vii)
'Can you conceive an Epicurean commonwealth? . . . What will happen? Whence is the population to
be kept up? Who will educate them? Who will be Director of Adolescents? Who will be Director of
Physical Training? What will be taught?' (Greek. Ibid.)
'Nature produces a special love of offspring' and 'To live according to Nature is the supreme good.'
(Roman. Cicero, De Off. i. iv, and De Legibus, i. xxi)
'The second of these achievements is no less glorious than the first; for while the first did good on
one occasion, the second will continue to benefit the state for ever.' (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. xxii)
'Great reverence is owed to a child.' (Roman. Juvenal, xiv. 47)
'The Master said, Respect the young.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, ix. 22)
'The killing of the women and more especially of the young boys and girls who are to go to make up
the future strength of the people, is the saddest part... and we feel it very sorely.' (Redskin. Account
of the Battle of Wounded Knee. ERE v. 432)
5. The Law of Justice
(a) SEXUAL JUSTICE
'Has he approached his neighbour's wife?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)
'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:14)
'I saw in Nastrond (= Hell)... beguilers of others' wives.' (Old Norse. Volospá 38, 39)
(b) HONESTY
'Has he drawn false boundaries?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)
'To wrong, to rob, to cause to be robbed.' (Babylonian. Ibid.)
'I have not stolen.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)
'Thou shalt not steal.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:15)
'Choose loss rather than shameful gains.' (Greek. Chilon Fr. 10. Diels)
'Justice is the settled and permanent intention of rendering to each man his rights.' (Roman.
Justinian, Institutions, I. i)
'If the native made a "find" of any kind (e.g., a honey tree) and marked it, it was thereafter safe for
him, as far as his own tribesmen were concerned, no matter how long he left it.' (Australian
Aborigines. ERE v. 441)
'The first point of justice is that none should do any mischief to another unless he has first been
attacked by the other's wrongdoing. The second is that a man should treat common property as
common property, and private property as his own. There is no such thing as private property by
nature, but things have become private either through prior occupation (as when men of old came
into empty territory) or by conquest, or law, or agreement, or stipulation, or casting lots.' (Roman.
Cicero, De Off. I. vii)
(c) JUSTICE IN COURT, &C.
'Whoso takes no bribe ... well pleasing is this to Samas.' (Babylonian. ERE v. 445)
'I have not traduced the slave to him who is set over him.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the
Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)
'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:16)
'Regard him whom thou knowest like him whom thou knowest not.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 482)
'Do no unrighteousness in judgement. You must not consider the fact that one party is poor nor the
fact that the other is a great man.' (Ancient Jewish. Leviticus 19:15)
6. The Law of Good Faith and Veracity
'A sacrifice is obliterated by a lie and the merit of alms by an act of fraud.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 6)
'Whose mouth, full of lying, avails not before thee: thou burnest their utterance.' (Babylonian. Hymn
to Samas. ERE v. 445)
'With his mouth was he full of Yea, in his heart full of Nay? (Babylonian. ERE v. 446)
'I have not spoken falsehood.' (Ancient Egyptian. Confession of the Righteous Soul. ERE v. 478)
'I sought no trickery, nor swore false oaths.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2738)
'The Master said, Be of unwavering good faith.' (Ancient
Chinese. Analects, viii. 13)
'In Nastrond (= Hell) I saw the perjurers.' (Old Norse. Volospá 39)
'Hateful to me as are the gates of Hades is that man who says one thing, and hides another in his
heart.' (Greek. Homer. Iliad, ix. 312)
'The foundation of justice is good faith.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i.vii)
'[The gentleman] must learn to be faithful to his superiors and to keep promises.' (Ancient Chinese.
Analects, i. 8)
'Anything is better than treachery.' (Old Norse. Hávamál 124)
H2>7. The Law of Mercy
'The poor and the sick should be regarded as lords of the atmosphere.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)
'Whoso makes intercession for the weak, well pleasing is this to Samas.' (Babylonian. ERE v. 445)
'Has he failed to set a prisoner free?' (Babylonian. List of Sins. ERE v. 446)
'I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a ferry boat to the
boatless.'
(Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 446)
'One should never strike a woman; not even with a flower.' (Hindu. Janet, i. 8)
'There, Thor, you got disgrace, when you beat women.' (Old Norse. Hárbarthsljóth 38)
'In the Dalebura tribe a woman, a cripple from birth, was carried about by the tribes-people in turn
until her death at the age of sixty-six.'... 'They never desert the sick.' (Australian Aborigines. ERE v.
443)
'You will see them take care of... widows, orphans, and old men, never reproaching them.' (Redskin.
ERE v. 439)
'Nature confesses that she has given to the human race the tenderest hearts, by giving us the power to
weep. This is the best part of us.' (Roman. Juvenal, xv. 131)
'They said that he had been the mildest and gentlest of the kings of the world.' (Anglo-Saxon. Praise
of the hero in Beowulf, 3180)
'When thou cuttest down thine harvest... and hast forgot a sheaf... thou shalt not go again to fetch it:
it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.' (Ancient Jewish. Deuteronomy
24:19)
8. The Law of Magnanimity
(a)
'There are two kinds of injustice: the first is found in those who do an injury, the second in those
who fail to protect another from injury when they can.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. I. vii)
'Men always knew that when force and injury was offered they might be defenders of themselves;
they knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury
unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means to be withstood.'
(English. Hooker, Laws of Eccl. Polity, I. ix. 4)
'To take no notice of a violent attack is to strengthen the heart of the enemy. Vigour is valiant, but
cowardice is vile.' (Ancient Egyptian. The Pharaoh Senusert III, cit. H. R. Hall, Ancient History of
the Near East, p. 161)
'They came to the fields of joy, the fresh turf of the Fortunate Woods and the dwellings of the
Blessed . . . here was the company of those who had suffered wounds fighting for their fatherland.'
(Roman. Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 638-9, 660)
'Courage has got to be harder, heart the stouter, spirit the sterner, as our strength weakens. Here lies
our lord, cut to pieces, out best man in the dust. If anyone thinks of leaving this battle, he can howl
forever.' (Anglo-Saxon. Maldon, 312)
'Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous.' (Stoic. Seneca,
Ep. liv)
'The Master said, Love learning and if attacked be ready to die for the Good Way.' (Ancient Chinese.
Analects, viii. 13)
(b)
'Death is to be chosen before slavery and base deeds.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i, xxiii)
'Death is better for every man than life with shame.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2890)
'Nature and Reason command that nothing uncomely, nothing effeminate, nothing lascivious be
done or thought.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i. iv)
'We must not listen to those who advise us "being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to
think mortal thoughts," but must put on immortality as much as is possible and strain every nerve to
live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and
honour surpasses all else.' (Ancient Greek. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1177 B)
'The soul then ought to conduct the body, and the spirit of our minds the soul. This is therefore the
first Law, whereby the highest power of the mind requireth obedience at the hands of all the rest.'
(Hooker, op. cit. i. viii. 6)
'Let him not desire to die, let him not desire to live, let him wait for his time ... let him patiently bear
hard words, entirely abstaining from bodily pleasures.' (Ancient Indian. Laws of Manu. ERE ii. 98)
'He who is unmoved, who has restrained his senses ... is said to be devoted. As a flame in a windless
place that flickers not, so is the devoted.' (Ancient Indian. Bhagavad gita. ERE ii 90)
(c)
'Is not the love of Wisdom a practice of death?' (Ancient Greek. Plato, Phadeo, 81 A)
'I know that I hung on the gallows for nine nights, wounded with the spear as a sacrifice to Odin,
myself offered to Myself.' (Old Norse. Hávamál, I. 10 in Corpus Poeticum Boreale; stanza 139 in
Hildebrand's Lieder der Älteren Edda. 1922)
'Verily, verily I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but
if it dies it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it.' (Christian. John 12:24,25)
Archived from http://www.cs.duke.edu/~lipyeow/DaleNelson/abolition_of_man.html
Copyright © 1998 Dale J. Nelson, Mayville (ND) State University
For discussion - The Abolition of Man
Page references are to the 1996 Touchstone/Simon & Schuster paperback edition.
In his preface to That Hideous Strength, Lewis says the novel has a serious point that he has tried to
make in this little book, The Abolition of Man. The novel is a work of fantasy or science fiction,
while Abolition is a short philosophical work about moral education, but as we shall see the two go
together; we will understand either book better by having read and thought about the other. Notes 3,
17, and 25 below provide overviews of each chapter in turn, while the other notes help with specific
points.
The context of Lewis's book is British education in the 1940s, so some of his expressions will need
explanation.
1. Title page. The "upper forms of schools" would be what Americans call the upper grades.
2. The epigraph is from the ancient Chinese teacher Confucius (K'ung Fu'tzu). One of Lewis's chief
points will be that moral education, with the same basic content, is found all over the world and at
different times. The last thing in the world Lewis is trying to do, is to impose his values. The moral
code is not the invention or property of any one person or movement or even civilization. It is
objective. Because it is found everywhere, Lewis can turn to ancient Chinese authorities such as
Confucius and Lao Tzu, or to authorities from many other places and times; they all teach the same
basic traditional code of morals. This traditional morality has often been called the Natural Law in
Western philosopy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Chapter One. All civilizations have agreed: education ought to nurture in the child a love of the
good; admiration of the excellent and beautiful; faithfulness to the truth; and also children should be
taught to disapprove of the false, the shoddy, the unworthy. The aim of true education is not only
that children learn to spell and calculate and become physically strong. It is, above all, that young
people should become courageous, generous, steady, and capable of discrimination in a good sense,
that is, able to judge what is more worthy and what is less worthy of the esteem of a mature human
being.
However, Lewis discusses the error of modern educators who teach that "values" are nothing but
expressions of feeling. These educators perhaps intend only to "debunk" advertisements and bad
political appeals, but when they say statements of value are nothing but statements of preference or
dislike, they plant damaging seeds in children. Children who absorb their philosophy will disbelieve
in the natural law itself.
4. (p. 17) By "elementary text-books" Lewis doesn't mean books that would be used in what
Americans call elementary school, but basic high school level books.
5. (p. 19) pons asinorum: Latin, "bridge of asses," referring to a basic geometric theorem difficult
for beginners.
"The schoolboy who reads...": Lewis summarizes his concern so far. The young person is led to
believe that statements of value, of the quality of something, are "only subjective" and not important.
6. (p. 21) Gaius and Titius should "stick to their last": i.e. stick to their proper job (from the
expression, "Shoemaker, stick to your last" - the last is a model of the human foot, made of wood or
metal). Marathon is a plain in southeast Greece, where the Athenians defeated the Persian invaders
in 490 BC. Iona is a remote island west of Scotland, where British monks kept the Christian faith
despite many hazards. Samuel Johnson meant that seeing these famous sites, scenes of the greatest
human dedication, should inspire a good person to greater love of his own country and religious
faith.
7. (p. 22) Margate is a popular resort for Londoners and other English people.
8. (p. 23) True education is concerned with the imagination and the heart, not just being clever and
getting along, and not just learning new skills (information processing skills, problem-solving skills,
etc.).
9. (p. 24) Ruksh, Sleipnir, etc.: majestic or lovable animals of literature. The discussion of
secundum litteram expressions refers to expressions that are not literally true. Lewis criticizes
Orbilius for not explaining to young people when it is appropriate to use expressions that are not
literally true and when it is not.
10. (p. 25) Lewis warns that Orbilius's way of "debunking" statements about animals that are not
literally true, is likely to promote neglect or mistreatment of animals. Young people will be less
compassionate and fond of animals, Lewis believes, because Orbilius presents them as really nothing
but brutes. Incidentally, Lewis was opposed to vivisection, medical experiments on living animals,
and wrote a paper attacking the practice. He could not find a publisher for it in England and it was
published in Australia instead.
11. (p. 26) Lewis continues to object that modern educators such as Gaius are not even doing their
jobs. Just as we don't want our dentist's obiter dicta (passing remarks, opinions) when we go to get
dental work, we don't want educators to indoctrinate our children with inferior philosophy when they
should be teaching them grammar and rhetoric. Bimetallism refers to the use of two metals, such as
silver and gold, as the basis for a stable coinage, and the Baconian theory holds that the plays
attributed to Shakespeare were written by someone else.
Don't misunderstand Lewis: he is not saying educators should not teach philosophy. He's saying (1)
they should teach grammar and rhetoric when that's the job at hand, rather than teaching philosophy
at that time or in that place; (2) he opposes the modern skeptical/subjectivist philosophy.
12. (p. 27) A key point: to prevent young people from being misled by propaganda, they need to be
led to think clearly and to love what is good, rather than being trained to become know-it-alls who
believe in nothing.
13. (pp. 27ff) "Until quite modern times...": this passage is essential. Lewis proceeds, basically in
reverse chronological order, to show that authorities from different times and places all agree that
recognition and esteem of the truly good, the really true and the genuinely beautiful is fundamental
for happy and human living. The "Tao," the unanimous moral code, the "doctrine of objective
value," the Natural Law, is not the private property of an individual, group, or civilization, but
common to all, and permanent and real.
14. (p. 32) The modern educators, Lewis says, give the young person two worlds with no real
connection: the world of plain facts (which they probably would think is things that can be
measured, the quantitative) and the world of mere feelings.
15. (pp. 33-4) Lewis says that the old Latin phrase dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, "It is a
sweet and appropriate thing to die for one's country," is an example of the kind of statement that
people with modern educations will "see through." They will have no love of their country.
16. (pp. 35-6) Lewis refers to a traditional "model" of human nature. The head is the "seat" of
Reason or the intellect; the chest is the seat of the heart, where noble sentiments should be
cultivated; the belly is the seat of the appetites for food, sex, physical exercise, etc. A well-educated
person is not a clever "thinking machine" on the one hand, or a creature pursuing thrills on the other.
He or she is knowledgeable, yes, and can have appetitive experiences in their time and place (for
example, sexual activity within marriage); but the well-educated person is a whole person. A
healthy society can't manage without such people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------17. Chapter Two. If children don't believe in the Natural Law, in moral absolutes, in ought and
ought not -- then humane society will not survive - unless maybe the educators can find some other
basis for ethical behavior. Lewis considers two such bases. (1) They can say that certain kinds of
behavior are "useful" to society and others are not, and so, on this factual basis, try to build an
ethical system. But this will not work because anyone can ask, "Why ought I be the one who has to
deny himself something for the sake of others?" The educators cannot logically say, "You ought to
because...," since they have already ruled out the Natural Law, which is the sole source of such
imperative statements as "One ought to be willing to lay down one's life to defend one's country,"
etc. (2) The educators can say that "instinct" (whatever that is) could be the basis for ethical
behavior. This will not work, either, because we have many instincts and they conflict with one
another - plus, it is questionable whether there really is an instinct to protect and preserve one's
society.
You can't base ethical behavior on something other than the moral absolutes, and the moral absolutes
cannot be "proven" by appeals to usefulness or instinct/biology. Rather, they must be accepted as
self-evident to any rational person - a rational person by definition is someone who recognizes the
moral absolutes. The moral absolutes are givens - starting-points for any discussion of what a
person or a society should do.
Those who come up with "new moralities" are really just taking something from the Natural Law
and giving it special privileges over against other elements of the Natural Law. People who do this
are doing something very bad, trying to use one element of the Tao against another. (Example:
people sometimes claim it is right for them to steal from the companies that employ them because
they themselves need the money and the companies can afford it. Their "moral" claim is, "Those
who have much have an obligation to those who have little. The company ought to share its wealth
with those who work for it and make its success possible, especially when they are needy." But this
argument, based on the duty of benevolence, disregards another element of the Tao, namely "Thou
shalt not steal.")
Development within the Tao is possible, though.* It certainly is not common. Lewis gives just one
example, the development from Confucius's "Do not do to someone else what you would not want
done to you," to Jesus' "Show to others the same compassion you would want shown to yourself.
18. (p. 41) That Greek is Greek to me!
19. (p. 43) The modern educators follow a double standard: the values of those they disagree with
should be attacked, but not their own.
20. (p. 51) Olaf Stapledon was a famous science fiction writer.
21. (p. 52) cuor gentil: a noble heart. Humani nihil...: nothing human is foreign/strange/not
understandable to me. Please do as the footnote asks and review the Appendix. It demonstrates the
unanimity of various cultures in asserting the duties of individuals to all people, particularly to
members of one's own family and to small children and the aged(I -IV); it gives examples of
statements requiring honesty, moral sexual behavior, and fairness (V-VI); it collects statements
requiring compassion, self-discipline, and giving of oneself, even one's life, for others (VII-VIII).
VIIIC shows that wisdom and integrity are valued more than life itself.
22. (p. 53) A rational person accepts the great moral platitudes because he or she believes or has
learned that they are self-evidently true. Until one recognizes them as self-evidently true, one cannot
be considered a truly rational person.
23. (p. 57) An example of a "Nietzschean" attitude would be the T-shirt slogan, "Winning isn't the
main thing, it's the only thing" (winning even by being ruthless, breaking rules if one can get away
with it, etc.). Opposed to this attitude is the code of sportsmanship, where the Tao is applied
specifically to the domain of athletic competition.
24. (p. 60) A theist is someone who believes in one God or many gods. Jews, Christians, Moslems,
Hindus, Zoroastrians, etc. are theists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25. Chapter Three. Lewis gave the traditional picture of a whole human being earlier (pp. 35-36).
Traditional educators throughout the ages recognized that the great moral absolutes have authority
over the educators themselves as well as over children -- everyone ought to be guided by the Tao.
Lewis argued that modern educators who reject the Tao cannot promote the growth of children to
become whole persons. In this final chapter, he considers the kind of human being that is likely to
be molded, in the future, by the successors of today's debunking educators -- powerful State
technocrats/"scientific planners"/social engineers/Conditioners who have rejected Natural Law. He
will also prophesy about the kind of beings the Conditioners themselves will become.
The few humans who are lucky enough to be technocrats will efface the Natural Law from education
and will condition humans, by means ranging from propaganda to genetic engineering. In so doing
they will change human nature itself. The resulting people (the vast majority) will not be human in
the traditional sense; they will be putty in the hands of the Conditioners.
What will guide the Conditioners as they manipulate the human putty? "When all that says 'it is
good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains." They can be guided only by whatever
irrational impulse is most powerful at the moment - by whatever pleases them. They too have lost
their humanity. As the many are slaves of the Conditioners, the Conditioners are slaves of irrational
nature - their appetites and emotions.
[Jim Laney, director of instructional technology at Taipei American School in Taiwan, refers to
Technopoly by Neil Postman (1993) as showing that the "conditioners" of today, and American
society itself, have "moved to a point where technology (medical, communications, computer, etc.)
displaces values and has become the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. We don't trust the doctor
until technology (CAT scans, etc.) has had its say. ... we have become slaves to our technology.]
The hellish situation prophesied in The Abolition of Man (and That Hideous Strength) comes about,
Lewis says, because the quest for ever more power has succeeded, while the virtues that would
protect us from the misuse of that power have been "explained away" as subjective illusions. The
quest for power goes back to the Renaissance, when modern science took off with the same
propellant - the quest for sheer power - that also fueled the explosion of Renaissance magic. The
"magician's bargain" does indeed prove to mean the ruin of the soul.
The chapter concludes, however, with speculation about a hopeful possibility. Instead of seeing all
of nature, including human nature, as material to be dominated and exploited, what if modern
science could be united with the old ideal of wisdom - the ancient quest to "conform the soul to
reality" by knowledge of, and obedience to, the great moral absolutes? What if the investigation of
nature could include the sensitivity that Lewis mentioned at the beginning - a sensitivity that
recognizes that the waterfall is beautiful and that its splendor will make a properly-educated observer
feel humble and eager to praise it? Modern science has made tremendous gains in factual
knowledge by focusing on the aspects of things that can be measured - that are quantifiable. What if
combined with this method was a firm ethical sensitivity, and a wholesomely-nurtured imagination,
that would also perceive the qualities of things? That, Lewis concludes, is what we desperately
need.
26. (p. 66) wireless: radio.
27. (p. 71) The National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments, in Lewis's novel That Hideous
Strength, is this type of near-future enterprise.
28. (p. 73) factitious: contrived, artificial.
29. (p. 74) sic volo, sic jubeo: Thus I wish, (so) thus I command.
30. (p. 78) Scientific knowledge has progressed by treating more and more things as just natural
objects to be analyzed, dissected, exploited at will. "I remember that my high-school biology text
dealt with the human body by listing its constituent elements, measuring their quantities, and giving
their monetary worth - at that time a little less than a dollar. That was a bit of the typical fodder of
the modern mind, at once sensational and belittling - no accidental product of the age of Dachau and
Hiroshima" (Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, p. 101; my italics.)
Lewis suggests that primordial human beings sensed that nature was alive and meaningful. Ancient
myths reflect that awareness in story form. He could have added that religions teach that nature
does not really belong to humans, to do as they wish with it. "The earth is the Lord's, and the
fullness thereof" (Psalm 24:1). "Grandfather, Great Spirit... everything has been made by you"
(Oglala Sioux: Black Elk Speaks, p. 5).
I warmly recommend The Silence of Angels by Dale C. Allison, especially the first few chapters, on
how the experience of nature (e.g. the starry night sky) disposes the soul to become aware of the
holy.
31. (p. 82) inter alia: among other things.
32. (p. 84) Renaissance scientist Francis Bacon wrote of nature as something to be tortured to force
it to yield its secrets. Dr. Faustus was a magician, in Renaissance legend.
33. (p. 85) Goethe, Steiner - here Lewis is certainly thinking of conversations with his friend, the late
Owen Barfield, who studied these men's writings. I'd recommend Barfield's "The Rediscovery of
Meaning" in the book of that title, or History, Guilt, and Habit as first items to try. A tougher book,
but rewarding, is his Saving the Appearances. I would be glad to set up a group outside of this class,
for the purpose of reading and discussing Barfield's writings - ask me, if you're interested! The
university library has a good collectionof Barfield's books. Many of his writings point towards the
antidote for the poison of reductionism ("only," "merely," "nothing but"). Some other works
pertinent to this topic include: The Rape of Man and Nature by Philip Sherrard (also published as
The Eclipse of Man and Nature), Foolishness to the Greeks by Lesslie Newbigin, Discerning the
Mystery by Andrew Louth, and others.
*I think Lewis would see in some, but not all, versions of today's greater ecological concern a
legitimate "development" of the duty to one's children (and children's children) and of the love we
ought to have for the beautiful (here including the beauty of the fabulously rich and varied world of
nature, which we did not create). Indeed, you will find a strong concern for nature in Lewis's That
Hideous Strength! However, he would certainly oppose extremists who say that it is "speciesism" to
value human life more than animal and plant life. The Tao always shows that the value of human
life is obviously higher than that of animals and plants: "an eye for an eye" in traditional morality
refers to the eyes of humans; I am liable to a severe punishment if I maliciously injure or kill another
human being, while if I injure a dog I am not punished as severely. However, traditional codes and
stories show that I should be punished in an appropriate degree if I maliciously hurt an animal -- for
example by being fined, etc.
Dr. Davey Naugle
An Introduction to and Themes from C. S. Lewis?s
The Abolition of Man
Introduction to the Book:
1. Historical Background to The Abolition of Man
The book originated during WWII when Lewis was asked by the University of Durham to present
the Riddell Memorial Lectures on February 24-26, 1943. They were actually given, not in the city of
Durham, but further north in the village of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the evening of these three days.
The lectures were published in a book later that same year by Oxford University Press.
2. The Theme of The Abolition of Man
One of the best defenses of the natural law tradition in the 20th century. Natural law is the notion
that there is an innate or native understanding of right and wrong that is the possession of every
human being. St. Paul explains the idea in Romans 2: 14-16.
Rom. 2:14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these,
not having the Law, are a law to themselves, Rom. 2:15 in that they show the work of the Law
written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or
else defending them, Rom. 2:16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets
of men through Christ Jesus.
Lewis summarizes the natural law tradition, ?written on the heart? in all its Judeo-Christian, GrecoRoman glory, and thus he stands in the tradition of the giants of Western civilization such as Plato,
Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. He also draws upon the wisdom of the East, including
Confucius and the sages of Hinduism, and even appropriates the Chinese term TAO as his symbol
for the natural law tradition.
Because he believed that the Western world was in the process of rejecting this natural law tradition
of an objective right and wrong, and because he saw this rejection being taught in the school systems
of the day, and because he believed that any society that accepted such a system of education that
rejected the natural law tradition was doomed to destruction, he penned this defense of the natural
law tradition as an attempt to salvage Western Civilization.
For him the turning point was the Enlightenment, when the West went through its most catastrophic
cultural transition, passing through what Lewis has referred to aptly as ?the un-christening of
Europe,? leading to the loss of the ?Old European? or ?Old Western Culture,? and to the advent of a
?post-Christian? age.
1
3. The Structure of The Abolition of Man
Chapter 1: Men Without Chests
1
C. S. Lewis, ?De Descriptione Temporum,? in Selected Literary Essays, ed. Walter (Cambridge: At
the University Press, 1969), 4-5, 12.
Debunks the modern attempt to debunk objective virtues and the cultivation of appropriate
sentiments to obey them. The purpose of education was to inculcate objective virtues in people by
linking them with the proper emotions. Reinforcing virtue with emotion produced sentiments or
habits in people, supplying them with chests to protect them from savagery. However, by debunking
all objective virtues and the emotions ordinate to them, educators were producing men without
chests, unable to resist their base appetites. This situation makes civilization unsustainable,
according to Lewis. ?We make men without chests and yet expect of them virtue and enterprise. We
castrate, and bid the gelding be fruitful.?
The Green Book (it had a green cover!) = The Control of Language (1940) by Alex King and Martin
Kelty (= Gaius and Titus). Orbilius = The Reading and Writing of English (1936) by E. G. Biaggini.
Lewis advocates the existence of an objective moral code that transcends time and culture. An
honest study of different cultures shows indicates the existence of a universal moral code which
Lewis refers to as the TAO. In the appendix to the book, he cites support for the existence of this
TAO.
Chapter 2: ?The Way?
Those who deny the validity of moral judgments are self contradictory, for they cannot or escape
making moral judgments themselves. The only way to avoid this is by denying objective moral
judgments all together and attempt to create our own as an act of the will to power! So Nietzsche,
but the cure is worse than the disease!
Chapter 3: ?The Abolition of Man?
The potential for tyranny in a world where the elites no longer believe in objective truth. Everything
is reduced to a struggle for power. There is no constraint on what social and political and cultural
elites might do to control and reshape society. The question is not what is right or wrong, but which
group has the most power to impose its will on the whole. It is the well spring of tyranny.
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Central Themes in Chapter One:
Men Without Chests
Theme #1: Miseducation. The problems of The Green Book and Orbilius is that school children do
not learn their lessons in literature that these books are intended to teach (?Another little portion of
the human heritage has been quietly taken from them before they were old enough to understand,?
25). Instead they are taught lessons in philosophy in which ethics, theology, and politics are all at
stake. At the same time, the children have their souls cut out. How so?
1. By virtue of instruction in ?emotivism,? or the view that all sentences expressing values (?The
waterfall is sublime?) are about the emotional state of the speaker, and not about anything objective
in the waterfall (or anything else for that matter).
2. That all such statements are unimportant, that all values are subjective, relative, and trivial (?All
emotions aroused by local associations are n themselves contrary to reason and contemptible,? 23).
3. These are not theories put directly into the child?s mind, but are assumptions which ten years
later, their origin forgotten and their presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a
controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all.
4. These teachers have cut out the soul of the school child, longer before he is old enough to choose
the possibility of having certain experiences which thinkers of more authority than they (Gaius and
Titius) have held to be generous, fruitful, and humane.
Theme #2: Uncultivated souls. While it is hard to say exactly what Gaius and Titius sought as their
purpose, it may be that they intentionally sought to produce what Lewis calls ?trousered apes? and
?urban blockheads.? That is, people who have been shorn clean of traditional values and noble
sentiments, giving them a new set of sentiments and values altogether.
Theme #3: Rationale. Lewis gives three reasons why he thinks that Gaius and Titius do what they do
in their book. One, literary criticism is hard, and it?s easier to do what they did do, namely debunk
traditional values and ordinate emotion. Two, they falsely think young people are given to emotional
excess, and thus need to be fortified against emotion by reason. Three, they reject the doctrine of
objective moral value, but this is contrary to the Western and, indeed, worldwide embrace of such a
doctrine, a doctrine Lewis calls by the Chinese name, TAO.
Regarding the second of the above three points, Lewis makes two points in response.
First, most students suffer from a lack of emotion (?cold vulgarity?), not an excess. Two, the best
cure for false emotions is to inculcate proper ones. Hence, ?THE TASK OF THE MODERN
EDUCATOR IS NOT TO CUT DOWN JUNGLES (of false emotions and sentimentality), BUT TO
IRRIGATE DESERTS (water proper sentiments and emotions).
Theme #4: Objective moral values. Lewis offers a survey of representatives from Western and world
sources who advocate the objective, universal, timeless principles and truths, or what Lewis calls the
TAO (Chinese for ?the way?). His examples are the following:
Shelley?s Aeolian Harp
Traherne?s notion of prizing things according to their value
St. Augustine?s ordo amoris
Aristotle?s educational dictum that the aim of education in to make the pupil love what he
ought.
Plato?s educating future guardians and philosopher -kings to have the right responses
based on music and poetic education.
Hinduism?s Rta
Chinese
Tao
Jewish law
?It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really
false, to the kind of thing the universe is, and the kind of things we are.? 31
?And because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses
to objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason, or out of harmony with
reason. . . . No emotion is, in itself, a judgment; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are
alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform.
The heart never takes the place of the head, but it can and should obey it.? 31
Theme #5: Education inside or outside the Tao. As Lewis points out, it makes all the difference in
the world if education proceeds inside or outside the Tao. The difference is between ?initiation? into
the universal human heritage of objective values or ?conditioning? to a new
,
subjective set of practical values by which people are manipulated pawns.
For those within, the task is to train in the student the responses which are right, regardless of how
many don?t make such responses, and in learning to make the right responses their true humanity
consists. ?It is but old birds (teachers) teaching young birds (students) how to fly.? It means
transmitting humanity, humanhood, to young men and women.
For those outside, all sentiments and affections are non-rational, and so they must either be removed
(cut down the jungle), or they must be given new sentiments which have nothing to do with truth,
objectivity, or justness. But here teaching is a form of manipulation, just as a poultry keeper deals
with young birds for the market.
Example of a Roman father teaching his son that it is a sweet and seemly thing to die for his country.
Lewis evaluates this inside and outside the Tao.
Theme #6: Trained emotions. Without the aid of trained emotions, the intellect or mind which knows
what to do is powerless against the animal organism. While the mind knows right and wrong almost
instinctively, if there is not a corresponding desire in the heart, the right affections, the right love or
disposition to DO what is right, then no amount of good reasoning will lead to doing the right thing.
It is better (that is, less risky) to play cards with a ?gentleman? who feels there are some things that a
?gentleman? simply does not do, than to play with a philosopher trained by Gaius and Titius!
The head (which knows right and wrong) rules the belly (animal appetites) through the chest
(ordinate emotions and just affections)! That is, only as the chest, the seat of emotions and
sentiments, is rightly trained to respond in accordance with objective moral
values, will it be able to control the baser appetites of the belly.
Theme #7: Men without chests. The chest, that is, the human heart, is the ?
liaison
? officer
between cerebral, thinking man and visceral, sensate man. Only as the ?chest? or ?heart? is trained in
the proper sentiments, that is, its desert is properly irrigated, will it be able to control the lower
desires. But modern education, Gaius and Titius and company are producing ?men without chests,?
that is, without the formation of the proper middle element by which a person is a person,
a man a man or a woman a woman. It is the defect of fertile and generous emotion. It is what Gaius
and Titius themselves lack. They are themselves men without chests.
Theme #8: Moral irony. Given the moral collapse of our culture, we clamour for the qualities that we
make it impossible to obtain. We cry out in a post-Columbine culture for values, and yet we are
destroying the foundations by which such values could be established.
?We remove the organ and demand the function.? ?We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.?
Summary: Gaius and Titius debunk ordinate emotions and proper sentiments based on objective
values and thereby destroy humanity, and in the process set the culture on the road to ethical,
religious, and political disaster where the poison of subjectivism reigns.
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Central Themes in Chapter Two:
The Way
Theme #1: Subjective destruction of society. An education in moral subjectivism will eventually
destroy the society which accepts it. Lewis is clear, however, that its pragmatic failure is no proof of
its falsehood. Indeed, true doctrines, if applied, may lead to our death. For example:
?Take up your cross, and follow Me!? Pragmatism is no test for truth. In this lecture, Lewis wants to
point out the THEORETICAL difficulties in the philosophy of Gaius and Titius, that is, why it is
wrong rationally.
Theme #2: Serious contradictions in Gaius and Titius philosophy. While Gaius and Titius espouse
moral subjectivism, they simultaneously promote certain objective values. While they overtly
promote relativism, they subtly embrace their own version of absolutism. Their philosophy is ?selfdefeating? or ?self-referentially incoherent? as philosophers say. What are the explicit
contradictions?
They write to produce certain states of mind in young people (conditioning them) because they think
that such states of mind will be the means to a better society than the one we have now.
The Green Book has a clear, specific end that it is seeking to promote, and end that has absolute
value in the authors? eyes. Even if they call their end by a euphemism such as ?necessary,?
?progressive,? or ?efficient,? they still have a certain, indisputable goal for
their work. They believe it to be ?good for its own sake,? and in some way think it ?valid or correct.?
They hold to a complete system of values with an ?uncritical dogmatism,? especially a system of
values prominent between WWI and WWII. There is no
subjectivism here!
Their skepticism is only a tool they use to attack traditional morality or the Tao, that is the beliefs of
other people. They are not skeptical about their own viewpoints! They debunk other peoples? values,
but certainly not their own.
Theme #3: The failure of UTILITARIANISM as a grounds for the new morality (and the is/ought
fallacy). If the traditional, absolute morality of the TAO, which Lewis equates with genuine Reason,
is rejected, what then can serve as the basis for a new set of values? Lewis uses the example of dulce
et decorm, a phrase from the Odes of Horace that meant that it is a sweet and becoming to die for
one?s country. He also invokes Jesus?s phrase from John that greater love has no man than that he
lay down his life for his friend. If these values are not real, true, absolute, objective, and rational,
then on what basis might they be promoted? Why die for
your country or your friend if it is not, indeed, a right and good and truly noble thing to do? Lewis
says that two platforms are possible, but neither succeed:
Utilitarianism: do it because it works! It saves society! Some must die for the benefit of others. It
helps, it works. But just because this helps or works is no basis for ME laying down MY life for
country or friend! If it is not a right thing to do, why should I do it and not someone else? Let others
sacrifice for me rather than me for others!
Is/ought fallacy: If this martyrdom is practiced, and it is by some, then it will work and it will
preserve society. Therefore it ought to be done. But Lewis says that just because something helps or
works or is done is no rational justification or basis that it ought to be
done, must be done, has to be done. Something truly absolute like ?society ought to be preserved? as
a rational foundation for action is necessary to move people to such self-sacrifice, not just that it
works and helps.
Hence, if Gaius and Titius proposal lacks a solid foundation in Reason, then what alternative
foundation is left to them to establish their new program of ethics. Lewis says it must be the doctrine
of instinct.
Theme #4: The failure of INSTINCT as a grounds for the new morality. If the new morality cannot
be grounded in reason, for it is the basis of the old morality, and if utilitarianism fails as a basis as
well, then what other option remains? Lewis proposes INSTINCT as the last resort:
following an unreflective or spontaneous impulse widely felt by members of a specie as the basis for
values. But Lewis offers several critiques of instinct as a basis for values:
1. If instinct is a natural, inescapable impulse that is naturally obeyed, why write books like the
Green Book exhorting us to obey instinct? Why praise those who have submitted to that which they
cannot avoid?
2. To assert that if people obey instinct, they will be happy and satisfied. But in the case of dying for
country or friends as instinctual, such happiness and satisfaction is achieved only when we are dead,
and hence is no satisfaction or happiness at all.
3. If instinct OUGHT to be obeyed, why? What is the basis for obeying instinct? Another instinct?
Why obey that instinct? There is no final foundation for obeying instinct.
4. Some instincts ought to be resisted, not obeyed. In fact, there are many instincts, like people,
telling us what to do. They are at war. How do we choose which ones to obey and not obey? There is
a need for a criterion or a basis for determining which instincts to obey and which not to obey.
Something outside instinct is needed in order to determine which instincts to obey and which to
suppress.
5. Finally, regarding the test case of dying for country or friends, there seems to be no such instinct
at all. Lewis has no such impulse. Most only have an instinct or impulse to sacrifice for one?s own
children or grandchildren, not posterity and not for future
generations. You need another law outside of instinct to encourage us to such action.
6. CONCLUSION: Neither utilitarianism or instinct is an adequate basis for the new morality! But it
is found already in the TAO itself.
Theme #5: The unavoidable supremacy of the TAO as the basis for all moral values. What the
Innovator is looking for as a justification for his/her new morality is already found in the TAO itself.
It is the foundational, axiomatic, self-evident set of first principles for all morality, not the outcome
of moral arguments but the basis for all moral arguments. Also:
Any attack on the Tao presupposes the Tao. There is no way to remove oneself from the
Tao or to select certain things from it and reject the rest. If accept parts, must accept whole; if reject
parts, must reject the whole, but this cannot be done!
The Tao therefore is the basis of all value systems. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value
is retained, it is retained. No new value system can be erected except on the basis of the Tao. All
such efforts will merely be fragments from the Tao itself. Rebellion against the Tao is a rebellion of
the branches against the tree or its trunk (see epigram at the beginning of this chapter). There are no
new primary colors, or a new sun or sky in which it may move.
Theme #6: Developments within the Tao. Can human understanding of the Tao be improved? Or is
it a moral code set in stone? Can it be obeyed? Aren?t the various articulations of it East and West,
Christian and non-Christian contradictory? Lewis thinks that our understanding of the Tao can be
improved, requiring criticism, removal of contradictions, and real development in perception. But
there are two ways to go about this: from without and from within the Tao:
It is parallel to the way a theoretician and poet treat language. The former as detached critic,
surgically if you will, and the latter as a genuine lover, in a kind of organic way.
There are genuine advances within the Tao illustrated in Jesus? notion of the golden rule (a positive
formulation) over Confucius? (a negative formulation). On the other hand, Nietzsche?s ethic is an
innovation, that is, an attempt at something totally new where
traditional morality is rejected along with the foundation for any value whatsoever. A genuine
advance is like one who loves fresh vegetables and decides to grow his own rather than purchase
them at the store. An innovation would mean rejecting vegetables
totally and trying to eat bricks and centipedes.
Only those sympathetic to the Tao, who love it and seek to obey it, can really make an advance
within it according to its genuine spirit and direction (so Confucius, Aristotle, and the Bible in John
7: 49; 11: 51).
?An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about ultimate
foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy!?
Lewis admits that the matter of making advances within the Tao are difficult, but the one thing that
cannot be done is to reject it in hopes of making an advance on it: ?You must not hold a pistol to the
head of the Tao? and expect to have any basis for morality!
A disclaimer: Lewis admits he is a Christian theist, but also is not attempting an argument for
theism, Christian or otherwise here. Rather, he is seeking to show that if humankind is to have any
values at all, then we must accept the validity of the Tao. Whether or not it must have a theological
basis is another topic for another day.
Theme #7: Conquest of the Tao. But a critic might say: if the Tao is simply a part of nature, why not
conquer it like we have all other parts of nature? Science has conquered everything else, and can
conquer this most recalcitrant aspect of nature as well! Humankind can do what it pleases with
nothing to please except itself. Let us remake life and let us remake man according to our
own specifications. Let us master the environment and now ourselves and choose our own teleology
or purpose. But what will happen when we reject values all together? What will our future be? See
the next lecture!
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Central Themes in Chapter Three:
The Abolition of Man
Theme #1: Man?s conquest of nature. Or as a friend of CSL put it: ?Man has nature whacked? (even
though ironically the man who said this was dying of tuberculosis: mortality has not been whacked).
While appreciating the accomplishments of modern science and without disparaging it, CSL is still
very concerned to understand what this agenda to conquer nature really means. He
wants to relate it to the overall theme of the book: the moral law, the Tao. Hence his goal in this
chapter is to clarify EXACTLY what all is implied, what is the true moral significance of the idea
that man is the possessor of increasing power over nature.
Theme #2: Man?s power over nature is really the power of some people over others using nature as
an instrument to wield that power. CSL offers three examples of how the development of scientific
technology in radios, airplanes, and contraceptive devices is really the power of some people over
others. We are not powerful ourselves just because we use these conveniences. Why?
First, you first have to be able to PAY for the use of these things. If you don?t have the money, you
don?t have the power these things provide.
?Any or all of these three things I have mentioned can be withheld by some men over other men--by
those who sell, or those who allow the sale, or those who owned the sources of production, or those
who make the goods.? 66
Second, even if you can pay for them, these things are really more powerful than you: if I pay you to
carry me, you have power over me as the one who carries me!
Third, these three forms of technology can be used against you: airplanes bomb, radios
propagandize, contraceptives deny existence or produce selective breeding. Hence, man?s power
over nature is the power of some over others in these three ways.
Theme #3: The total remaking of humanity by some human beings is what is really meant by the
phrase ?Man?s power over Nature.? CSL is careful to clarify that what he is talking about is not just
the abuse or corruption of science and technology its correction by the application of the moral law.
Rather, by looking ahead in time to future generations, it means ?the power of
earlier generations over later ones.? Thinking in terms of TIME is the key. CSL anticipates ?one
dominant age,? and a ?master generation,? which like all ages and generations, will modify the
power of the previous age and generation and the one to follow. He seems especially concerned
about that generation equipped with the power of EUGENICS AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION:
In reality, of course, if any one age really attains by eugenics and scientific education, the power to
make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They
are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have
preordained who they are to use them. And if, as is almost certain, the [master] age which had thus
attained maximum power over posterity were also the age most emancipated from tradition [Tao], it
would be engaged in reducing the power of its predecessors almost as drastically as that of its
successors [that is, it has power over the past as well as the present]. 68
For CSL, the later or even last generation will be the least powerful since it is the recipient of the
ordering forces of those who have gone before it: they ?will be of all men most subject to the dead
hand of the great planners and conditioners and will themselves
exercise least power upon the future.? 69
Here is how CSL sums up the situation in his prophetic best of ONE DOMINANT AGE AND ONE
MASTER GENERATION, one set of SCIENTIFIC PLANNERS that will remake humankind:
?The real picture is that of one dominant age, let us suppose the hundredth century A.D.- which
resists all previous ages most successfully [tosses out the Tao, etc.] and dominates all subsequent
ages most irresistibly, and thus is the real master of the human
species. But even within this master generation (itself an infinitesimal minority of the species) the
power will be exercised by a minority smaller still. Man?s conquest over Nature, if the dreams of
some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few
hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase
of power on Man?s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance
leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory,
besides there being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car.?
69
Theme #4: The final stage in Man?s conquest of Nature, that is, of Man?s remaking of Man
by EUGENICS, is likely not far off.
The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and
propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human
nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man.
The battle will then be won. We shall have ?taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho? AND
BE HENCEFORTH FREE TO MAKE OUR SPECIES WHATEVER WE WISH IT TO BE. The
battle will, indeed, be won. But who, precisely, will have won it? . . .
For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the
power of some men to make other men what they please. 70
Theme #5: The twofold uniqueness of this coming generation of power. While this power has always
been exercised by one generation over another in some way shape or form, this particular situation
of the coming dominant age, master generation, and set of scientific planners will be unique in two
ways:
One, they will be supported by the powers of an
omni-competent
state and an
irresistible scientific technique. Being undergirded by this unique political and scientific power, this
set of ?man-moulders? and ?race of conditioners? can make future generations into whatever they
want, that is, ?cut out all posterity in what shape they please.? 71
Two, they will have rejected the TAO completely and will be totally free to do to humankind
whatever they want physiologically and morally: they will even remake the TAO itself into whatever
they want:
?In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for
producing him were prescribed by the Tao?a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject
and from which they claimed no liberty to depart. They did not cut men to some pattern they had
chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery
of
humanity which overarched him [student] and them [teachers] alike. It was but old birds teaching
young birds to fly.
?This will be changed. Values are now mere natural phenomena. Judgement of value are to be
produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the
motive, of education. The conditioners have been emancipated from all that. It is one more part of
Nature which they have conquered. The ultimate springs of human action are no longer, for them,
something given. They have surrendered?like electricity: it is the function of the Conditioners to
control, not obey them [the ultimate springs of human action].
They know how to produce conscience and decide what kind of conscience they will produce. They
themselves are outside, above. For we are assuming the last stage of Man?s struggle with Nature.
The final victory has been won. Human nature has been conquered?and, of course, has conquered, in
whatever sense those words may now bear.? 71-72.
Theme #6: The invention of a new, man-made, artificial Tao. If the conditioners have rejected all
values and the basis of all values, where will the new values come from and what will be it or their
basis? They have assumed the God-like role of creating the motives for human behavior and of
motivating people to behave in a certain way. But what is the basis for their own motivation
project? Lewis suggests that for a while at least it will probably be the remnants of the real Tao itself
that will be the basis and motivation for creating a new basis and motivation for behavior:
they have a ?duty? to do the human race ?good.? But this cannot and will not last for long because it
is objective ?duty? and notions of the ?good? which they have conquered and rejected.
Will they then decide if the rest of us should be conditioned to embrace duty and the old reactions to
it? And yet duty itself cannot decide that since duty is no longer absolute. It is itself up for trial (why
be dutiful?) so it cannot be the basis for this judgment. Good is in the same boat. They know how to
produce good in us, but which conception of the good.
Good cannot help them decide that since it is up for grabs. A debarred judge cannot decide his own
case!
The bottom line: rejecting the Tao leaves no foundation upon which to decide a new one.
This is no sham dilemma, that is, factitious which means something ?produced artificially rather than
by a natural process.?
Theme #7: The loss of genuine humanity and the cultivation of a psuedo-humanity. It is not that
these conditioners in Lewis?s estimation are bad men: THEY ARE NOT TRUE MEN AT ALL!
?Why should I suppose they will be such bad men?? But I am not supposing them to be bad men.
They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed
their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what
?Humanity? shall henceforth mean. ?Good? and ?bad,? applied to them, are words without content:
For it is from them that the content of these words is henceforth to be derived. 73
They choose what they think the rest of us want (food, drink, sex, entertainment, art, science, long
life). But who is to say that the rest of us want these things. And even if we did, why should we
dutifully make these things available to ourselves and to our
posterity? What ?duty? compels us to such action? Preservation of the species? They can find no
ground to stand on, else they beg the question of the Tao itself.
?It is not that they are bad men. they are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped
into the void. Nor are their subjects (the conditioned ones) necessarily unhappy men. They are not
men at all: they are artifacts
. Man?s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man! 74
Theme #8: Radical subjectivism as the basis of morality. The only motivation left for morality is the
conditioners ?felt emotion? and ?pleasure.? But impulses stripped of the Tao for guidance is rarely
benevolent or noble. And history shows that few if any rulers stripped of the Tao has used their
power benevolently (WWI and WWII is in the background). Chance is the only basis of hope
for a good society, that the conditioners will choose benevolence as the basis for it, but there is no
guarantee.
?My point is that those who stand outside all judgments of value cannot have any ground for
preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.? 75
?Their extreme rationalism, by ?seeing through? all ?rational? motives leaves them creatures of
wholly irrational behavior. If you will not obey the Tao, or else commit suicide, obedience to
impulse (and therefore, in the long run, to mere nature) is the only
course left open.? 76
Sidebar conjecture: The conditioners will hate the conditioned because at least they have the
semblance of meaning in their lives whereas the conditioners have none just like eunuch envy real
men.
Theme #9: Man?s conquest of Nature turns out to be Nature?s conquest of man. That is, the natural
impulses of the conditioners turn out to condition ?man,? including the manhood of the conditioners
themselves. Nature, untrammeled by values, rules the conditioners and, through them, all humanity.
The conditioners appeared to be on top of Nature:
Conditioners
Nature
But as it turns out, Nature actually is on top of the conditioners:
Nature
Conditioners
And the conditioners are on top of the conditioned:
Nature
Conditioners
Conditioned
So everything and everyone is subject to the unrestrained impulses of Nature. Sounds
suspiciously like our own society today!
Theme #10: The ?disenchantment? of nature, including man. Before there was a sense that there was
something more to nature than just nature.
?
Nature enchanted: quality, consciousness, autonomy, values, final causes.
?
Nature disenchanted: spatial, temporal, quantity, objects, bound, no values, efficient causes
.
But modern science has reduced everything, including human beings, to mere nature by its analysis
and quantification. Bodies and trees are examples, but they can become just a body and just a tree
stripped of their genuine qualities. We reduce things to nature to conquer them, but we become a
part of that nature, and then ironically we get conquered. People become mere objects, like
everything else, for manipulation. Nature and man become the same thing!
?But as soon as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of mere Nature, the
whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain (man) and the being who has
been sacrificed (nature) are one and the same. 79
?It is in Man?s power to treat himself as a mere ?natural object? and his own judgements of value
raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. ... The real objection is that if man chooses to
treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he
fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of the
dehumanized Conditioners.? 80
Theme #11: Either/or dilemma: Naturalism or Taoism! ?Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever
to obey the absolute values of the Tao, or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new
shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have no motive but their own ?natural?
impulses. Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can overarch rulers and
ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not
tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery? 80-81.
Theme #12: This process applies not just to Communists and Nazis but to all societies that have
rejected the Tao. It has just gone on faster in the former settings than in democratic ones, but it is and
will happen in democratic societies as well. 81
Theme #13: This process of the abolition of man shows up in the everyday use of language,
especially in redefining terms and in commodification.
Killed bad men = liquidate unsocial elements.
Virtue = integration
Diligence = dynamism
Boys worthy of a commission = potential officer material
Thrift and temperance and intelligence = sales resistance (commodification) 81-82.
Abortion = pro-choice
Baby in womb = fetus
Legal justice = dream team of lawyers
Moral formation = self help
Virtues = personal values
Sin = indiscretion
Sexual immorality = hooking up.
Theme #14: Humanization or dehumanization again.
Humanization: ?In the Tao itself, as long as we remain within it, we find the concrete reality in
which to participate is to be truly human: the real common will and common reason of humanity,
alive, and growing like a tree, and branching out, as the situation
varies, into ever new beauties and dignities of application. While we speak from within the Tao we
can truly speak of Man having power over himself in a sense truly analogous to an individual?s selfcontrol.
Dehumanization: ?But the moment we step outside and regard the Tao as a mere subjective product,
this possibility has disappeared. What is now common to all men is a mere abstract universal, an
H.C.F., and Man?s conquest of himself means simply the rule of the Conditioners over the
conditioned human material, the world of post-humanity which, some knowingly and some
unknowingly, nearly all men in all nations are at present labouring to produce.? 82
Theme #15: The prostitution of science. For CSL, instead of pursuing science in its purest sense for
the sake of true knowledge and wisdom, it is pursued for the sake of power over nature as if it were a
kind of magic.
People will think of Lewis as a Luddite (one who opposes science and technology). Not so he says.
Genuine natural philosophers, that is, those who pursue science in a philosophical sense in quest for
genuine knowledge and wisdom as a value in and of itself, knows that CSL in defending values
defends knowledge at the same time. If you destroy value, you destroy knowledge simultaneously.
In fact, CSL thinks that true science might be the source of the real cure for all the problems he has
raised (more on
this later).
Strange as it may seem, science is more like magic than real science. Magic was less prominent in
the middle ages and more prominent at the time of the birth of modern science.
?In the old days, wisdom, not magic or science was the primary concern: ?For the wise men of old
the cardinal problem had been to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge,
self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality
to the wishes of men (reality to the soul): the solution is a technique; and both (magic and science) in
the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious....?
83-4
Faustus (who struck a deal with the devil for gold, girls, and guns = power) and Bacon (the founder
of modern science who said knowledge was not valuable for its own sake but for power) have more
in common than we think! Hence, Lewis calls for a new
science!
Theme #16: The call for a new science. It is science in the context of the Tao, science that pursues
genuine knowledge, science that respects nature, science that enters appreciatively and respectfully
into the thing known, etc.
Theme #17: The absolute indispensability of the Tao or the loss of everything. You can?t explain
everything away: if you do, you have no ground to stand upon and in doing so you destroy it all. The
Tao is the first principle, and without it you have nothing.