Abolition Of Man Essay -- essays research papers

Every culture ever known has operated under a system of values. Many varied on exact principles, but most applied the idea of Natural Law. Or, as C.S. Lewis would refer to it in his Abolition of Man, the Tao. In this particular book Lewis discusses the implications that would follow could man overcome this basic value system that has been in place since the development of rational thought. However, paradoxical as his opinion may seem, he holds that to step beyond the Tao is to plunge into nothingness. Simply put, it is his claim that to destroy, or even fundamentally change, man’s basic value system is to destroy man himself.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Lewis states late in the book that, â€Å"They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void(64).† The empty â€Å"they† that Lewis is referring to those that would seek to move beyond the Tao. Acceptance in the belief that the Tao is the rational contents of everyman, which Lewis asserts openly in the text, is to say that he has moved beyond all that makes him man. Although the idea of overcoming the Tao leading to nothingness in man is somewhat abstract, Lewis explains it in different terms later. He discusses the qualitative value of things be saying, â€Å"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(70).† This is to say that it is the Tao that gives man his qualitative properties and ...