The Abolition of Man

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)

C. S. Lewis

Spare, exact, and altogether without the comforts of a Lewis story.

Catch rate: 60 / 255
Base research: 252
Stat total: 344

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina88

Contend92

Defend90

Popularity74

Total344

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 88

STAMINA — Moderate. It is three lectures, and every page is doing something.

Contend 92

CONTEND — High. It shows that debunking every value ends in debunking the debunker.

Defend 90

DEFEND — Solid. It is a hard book to answer, and few have tried it head on.

Popularity 74

POPULARITY — Moderate. It is quoted far more than it is read.

Cited for this book

C. S. Lewis gave these three lectures in 1943, and they were a warning. If we teach that every value is only a feeling, we produce people who cannot be trusted with values, and then are shocked at what they do. He called the first principles of right and wrong the Tao, and said that every attack on them is a branch attacking the tree it grows on.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

The Abolition of Man→
Lv 70

The Works of C. S. Lewis

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	Men Without Chests	Ethics	Argument	88	100%	10
14	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
30	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
42	The Middle Element	Ethics	Argument	84	100%	15
54	The Rebellion of the Branches	Ethics	Argument	90	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue.”
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943), as quoted in The Gospel Coalition, “Awaken Virtue with Classic Stories” (2024). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

Men Without Chests

EthicsArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameLewis’s best-known complaint against modern schooling. It teaches people to sneer at honour and then is shocked to find traitors. It removes the very organ of virtue and then demands the function.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“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.”
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943), ch. 1, “Men Without Chests,” as quoted by Joe Carter, The Gospel Coalition, “Why the HR Mindset Can’t Condemn Genocide” (2023). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Middle Element

EthicsArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameLewis says a person is made of a head and an appetite and something between them, the chest, which trained feeling supplies. The head alone cannot tell a person what is worth doing. That is why he says a person is a person by the middle element.

“The rebellion of new ideologies against the Tao [the absoluteness of first principles — and ultimately against God] is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves.”
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943), p. 56, as quoted by John Piper, Desiring God, “C. S. Lewis, Romantic Rationalist” (2013); the bracket is Piper’s. Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Rebellion of the Branches

EthicsArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameLewis says every attack on the old first principles of right and wrong is an attack from a branch on the tree that holds it. If the branches won, they would find they had destroyed themselves.

Strong against

×2.5Truth Is Poweran argument · why?

Foucault unmasks every ideal as a tool of power. Lewis says each ideology that attacks the first principles of right is a branch rebelling against the tree. If it won, it would find it had destroyed the place it was standing on.