The Abolition of Man and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more

Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Start reading The Abolition of Man on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Abolition Of Man [Paperback]

C S Lewis
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 16.99
Price: CDN$ 12.26 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
You Save: CDN$ 4.73 (28%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 2 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Friday, June 21? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout.

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Hardcover CDN $12.08  
Paperback CDN $9.05  
Paperback, Mar 8 2001 CDN $12.26  
Board book --  

Book Description

Mar 8 2001 Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society.

Frequently Bought Together

The Abolition Of Man + The Problem Of Pain + Mere Christianity
Price For All Three: CDN$ 37.51

Show availability and shipping details

  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details

  • The Problem Of Pain CDN$ 12.99

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details

  • Mere Christianity CDN$ 12.26

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product Details


Product Description

Review

"A Real Triump." -- Owen Barfield

From the Back Cover

In this graceful work, C. S. Lewis reflects on society and nature and the challenges of how best to educate our children. He eloquently argues that we need as a society to underpin reading and writing with lessons on morality and in the process both educate and re-educate ourselves. In the words of Walter Hooper, "If someone were to come to me and say that, with the exception of the Bible, everyone on earth was going to be required to read one and the same book, and then ask what it should be, I would with no hesitation say The Abolition of Man. It is the most perfectly reasoned defense of Natural Law (Morality) I have ever seen, or believe to exist. If any book is able to save us from future excesses of folly and evil, it is this book." This beautiful paperback edition is sure to attract new readers to this classic book.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
I doubt whether we are sufficiently attentive to the importance of elementary text books. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
INTRODUCTION
This famous 50-page survey of Natural Law thinking is one of Professor Lewis's tougher but more important works and with the current revival of NL thinking it should rise again. As moral philosophy (of the realist-objectivist school), via ancient literature, it is unusual and original. It is certainly not a work of theology. Confucius, Hindu 'Laws of Manu', and ancient Babylonians are quoted on a par with the Old and New Testament. (Catholics may sail through; but antinominianists will struggle against a non-theist exposition of the universal Law. In this case take Rom. ch. 1-3, and a bracing meditation on the concept of General Revelation as a tonic.)

Although its terseness makes it unsuitable for beginners, it would be possible to work up to it; either via Lewis's 'Mere Christianity', Book I, and Book III, parts 1-5 (a total of about 40 pages); and then the two essays from his book 'Christian Reflections', entitled 'On Ethics' and 'The Poison of Subjectivism' (total 25 pages). Or read Plato's 'Republic', Bks. 1-4, avoiding the old Jowett translation. (Kantians could limber up with 'Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law', by John Wild.)

SYNOPSIS: Chapter 1: Men Without Chests
The first 7 pages are discursive and, read once, may be skipped thereafter (rather like Book 1 of Plato's 'Republic'). They famously and confusingly deal with the link between objective aesthetics and emotive reactions to 'Nature'. It is not for Philosophy 101 students, reactions ranging from: 'What--who cares?--it's only opinion', to 'How is this relevant?'. Read the 'Republic', Bks. 1-4 until mastered.

The dogs of war are unleashed in the next 6 pages, from the paragraph opening:

'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...'

We then race through Coleridge and Shelley's 'just' and 'ordinate' reaction to beauty in Nature; Augustine's on 'virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections'; Aristotle and Plato on education (beauty and ethics); Rta and satya in early Hinduism; Tao (pronounced "Dao") in the Analects; and the Law (of the Lord) of the Hebrews. [Compare ancient Egyptian Maat.]. This is the universal 'doctrine of objective value'. To not know it is to invite the separation of fact and value, as all sentiments (emotional habits) are made purely subjective and even non-rational. Plato's tripartite model of Man: the Rational element rules the Appetites via the Sentiments (Spirited Element): 'The head rules the belly through the chest...The Chest--Magnanimity-- Sentiment--these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.' To deny this model is to produce Men Without Chests.

Chapter 2: The Way
Even Subjectivists have objective values. The fact that they act at all, even to propagate their own point of view, proves that they hold some real values. Calling values 'progressive' is subterfuge: progressing to what, and why? Modern ideologies isolate an element of morality, exaggerate its importance, and suppress others. Eg, communist States supposedly feed everyone fairly-but crush individuality, freedom, truth, and creativity if it helps.

We cannot get a moral basis for human action from reasoning with facts alone--no deducing an 'ought' from an 'is'. This does not debunk moral reasoning: it merely proves that there must be Moral Axioms to start from, as there axioms in logic. Plato and the Stoics called this basic morality Natural Law, the other cultures by their synonyms. Lewis chooses the term the 'Tao' for brevity and neutrality. Scientific objections: morality is Instinct--but if two instincts clash how will you know which to obey? There is no Master instinct. The great civilizations all agree in this: so much for sociological relativism. Moral progress within the tradition of the Tao is possible: Paul the Pharisee, 'perfect as touching the Law', yet he saw its limits.

Chapter 3: The Abolition of Man
The 'Brave New World' scenario: if we cede final and total socio-psychological control to technocrat master-politicians even the few at the top will have to act according to some moral principles. But they also must be the ultimate Supermen, incapable of making mistakes, and guaranteeing happiness for the brainwashed ant-minions: '...the magician's bargain: to give up our soul, get power in return.' But to give up your soul is to lose yourself. And so losing free will in society results in the Abolition of Man.

Appendix: Illustrations of the Tao
Select quotations on the basic morality of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome, India, Anglo-Saxon, etc.

1. The Law of General Beneficence, negative and positive.
Do not murder. Love thy neighbour. (Hebrew)

2. The Law of Special Beneficence
If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith. (Christian)

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. (Hindu)

4. Duties to Children and Posterity
The Master said, Respect the young. (Chinese)

5. The Law of Justice: sexual; honesty; in court
Has he approached his neighbour's wife? [sinfully];
To wrong, to rob, to cause to be robbed;
Whoso takes no bribe [in the judiciary]...well pleasing is this... (Babylonian)

6. The Law of Good Faith and Veracity
The foundation of justice is good faith. (Roman)

7. The Law of Mercy
I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked. (Egyptian)

8. The Law of Magnanimity (self-sacrifice)
To take no notice of a violent attack is to strengthen the heart of the enemy. Vigour is valiant, but cowardice is vile. (Pharaoh Senusert III, Egypt.)

Was this review helpful to you?
5.0 out of 5 stars Even more timely than when it was written. Jun 23 2002
Format:Paperback
C.S. Lewis wrote this book in 1944, but he could have written it yesterday. In this little gem, C.S. Lewis sees through the modern world view right to the core of where it goes wrong. Most writers would need several hundred pages to explain how modernity differs from the pre-modern world view; and another several hundred pages to explain the dangers of modernity. C.S. Lewis manages it in under one hundred pages. And he even makes it fun.

In a nutshell, his book is on the dangers of moral relativism, a concern which we hear much about these days. Less often do we hear the critiques which he brings to bear on the technological mindset that wants to subject nature to our own whims. The punch line is that when all is said and done, our whims can only come from nature (if we refuse to acknowledge some external source of value.) If all there is in the world is nature, then nature must inevitably win.

Virtually every page offers a fresh insight into our modern-day foibles. That he wrote this highly relevant book more than a half-century ago is testimony to the clarity of his vision.

Was this review helpful to you?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Have Other Reviewers Forgotten the Title? Dec 10 2002
Format:Paperback
I just finished reading this book for the fifth time; it is quickly becoming my favorite. Lewis traces how mankind will by means of poor education, faulty logic, and scientific/technological advances ultimately destroy itself, though certainly not in an apocalyptic fashion.
Lewis details how an improper education denies mankind that which makes us human, our virtue, our "Chests." By our heads we are mere intellect and spirit, and by our bodies we are mere animal and appetite; but where these two meet, the chest, is where we find our humanity.
"The Tao," which Lewis attributes an entire chapter to, is the undeniable universal laws govern and have always governed the lives of all humans (he offers evidence of the Tao from nearly every ancient religion/moral code at the end of the book). The Tao offers us the transparent window or lens with which we are able to experience this world. Those who try to step outside the Tao to criticize it, like those who accuse morality as being the construct of a power-hungry priestly ascetic caste (sound like Nietzsche?)and insist that the burden of proof lie with the accused (morality), speak utter nonsense. Thinkers like Marx and Nietzsche (whose philosophy was so paradoxical it drove him insane, he renounced all philosophy before him, including the ancient Greeks, and used logic to disprove logic), who reject the Tao, reject humanity. (I do no justice to Lewis's arguments; read the book.)
From this point we examine how mankind's conquest of Nature is really only the conquest of some men by other men. We are like the magician who surrenders more and more to Nature in return for power until he surrenders himself. We believe we are progressing, becoming more powerful, but we are not. We fail to factor in time to our equations, and fail to forsee its consequences. For example we are able to control posterity by means of contraceptives and abortion, something man has been unable to do in all of history, until now. We do not understand our own limits. We build too high on too shallow of a foundation, and our own building comes crashing down upon us.
Like Marx's notion that elements within bourgeoisie society are responsible for its destruction, Freud's notion that we all have a "death drive," Nietzsche's idea of a "will to nothingness," Derrida's wish to "transcend man and mankind," and Binswanger's observation that the artists who transcend their own captivity are eventually going to experience a lethal fall, Lewis understands that, from his beginnings, Man has sought his own destruction. But before now we had not the means, the leaders, or the ignorance to go through with it.
Was this review helpful to you?
Want to see more reviews on this item?
Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Will read over and over again
This is one of those books to be read at different times and seasons of life. It was not an easy read, however brief it is. Read more
Published 21 months ago by jobot
5.0 out of 5 stars Lewis and the Unabomber
Those who read this book, might also want to read Alston Chase's Harvard and the Unabomber. There Chase traces Ted Kaczynski's hatred of technology to two factors, one of which was... Read more
Published on May 3 2004 by Michael W. Perry
5.0 out of 5 stars Habermas repeats this argument in Future of Human Nature
I read this on the advice of one friend and was encouraged by another. It starts out in a very surprising way. But of course! Read more
Published on Jan 6 2004 by W. Jamison
4.0 out of 5 stars Too close to home
The Abolition of Man is curious. It begins from a mere germ of an idea, inferred from an unchallenged source, and then slowly balloons until it is a diatribe against eugenics,... Read more
Published on Oct 26 2003 by Arthem
4.0 out of 5 stars Read more carefully [...]
This book will not be easy for everyone, but it will be rewarding to engage with it, even if you disagree with Lewis' thinking. Read more
Published on Jun 10 2003 by Abba Poemen the Ubermensch
5.0 out of 5 stars The dangers of moral relativism
In this short book, CS Lewis takes public education for his subject, though the scope of the work goes well into the philosophical and ethical realms. Read more
Published on April 14 2003 by bixodoido
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting gathering of ideas, concepts, and theories.
I'll admit that some of Lewis's comments left me in the dust, but I did appreciate how well grounded some of his arguments were. Read more
Published on Feb 19 2003 by Chadwick H. Saxelid
5.0 out of 5 stars The intellectual bankruptcy of ethical relativism.
The book contains three closely related essays on ethical relativism. As different as Eastern philosophy (Chinese and Indian) may be from Western philosophy (Greco-Roman and... Read more
Published on Jan 22 2003 by Wesley L. Janssen
5.0 out of 5 stars Years Ahead of the Trends
In The Abolition of Man C.S. Lewis was well ahead of his times. He foresaw the development of postmodernism and deconstructionism. Read more
Published on Dec 21 2002 by Dr. Carol Samuelson
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best and the Worst of C.S. Lewis
This book shows Lewis at his best and at his worst. At his best, he is a sharp social critic, a lucid expositor, and a man with an uncanny ability to get right down to the heart of... Read more
Published on Dec 10 2002 by Dale A. Favier
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Amazon.ca Privacy Statement Amazon.ca Shipping Information Amazon.ca Returns & Exchanges