Men Without Chests: C. S. Lewis on the Abolition of Man

The heart of Lewis’ argument throughout his volume is the necessity of absolute truth and how the absence of belief in absolute truth in society inevitably leads to The Abolition of Man. Lewis presents this argument in a series of three lectures.  The first lecture deals with The Green Book, the second lecture handles the Tao, and the third lecture deals with mankind’s continual attempt at conquering Nature.

Lewis beings his first lecture, “Men Without Chests,” with a critique of an elementary English grammar textbook.  The Green Book, as Lewis refers to it, by Gaius and Titius, teaches students “that all values are subjective and trivial” (5).  To illustrate his inference, Lewis cites the commentary by Gaius and Titius regarding a story about a waterfall.  In the story, two tourists describe the waterfall as “sublime” and “pretty.”  Gaius and Titius, however, commentate that while the description of “pretty” should be rejected, the description given by the tourists that the waterfall is “sublime” is actually referring to the tourist’s feelings, not the waterfall.  Gaius and Titius add that when “we appear to be saying something very important about something . . . we are only saying something about our own feelings” (2).  In debunking this theory, Lewis points out the “obvious absurdities,” such as if someone says something is contemptible then that would mean that the person is having contemptible feelings (3).

Lewis then shifts his discussion to the dangerous consequences that this teaching has on students, claiming that the students will come away from their reading of The Green Book with two false conclusions.  First, the student will believe “that all sentences containing a predicate of value are statements about the emotional state of the speaker” (4).  Second, the student will believe that “all such statements are unimportant” (4).  Lewis points out that this will occur unknowingly to the student.  The student believes that he is learning grammar; he has no awareness that his mind is being filled with an erroneous worldview.  In fact, not only is there a shaping of his worldview occurring, he is not even learning grammar, the supposed purpose of the textbook!  Lewis concludes that “Gaius and Titius, while teaching him nothing about letters, have cut out 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” (9).  Lewis claims that while Gaius and Titius believe they are doing a service to the students by “fortifying the minds of young people against emotion,” that instead they are doing a great disservice to them, for “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” (14).

In other words, starving someone of knowledge is not the best way to prevent someone from assimilating wrong or evil things.  Instead, it is best if the person is taught the correct or good things.  At this point, Lewis begins his discussion of the Tao, or 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” (18).  In short, the Tao contains all objective value and truth.  This idea of the Tao, the idea of absolute truth or virtue, is the enemy of The Green Book.  Resulting from this battle against the Tao, The Green Book produces Men Without Chests (25).  Calling their claim to be Intellectuals preposterous, Lewis points out that “their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so” (25).