The Abolition Of Man [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.)

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.

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.