Wednesday, October 20, 2004

A Real Right and Wrong

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, I apologize to them. They had much better read some other book, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:

I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or more likely this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us....I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature.
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book One: Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe, (1952)
______________________________

On this day:

1949 The Inklings hold their last recorded Thursday night meeting in Lewis's rooms in Magdalen College. The Tuesday morning meetings in the back room at the Eagle and Child pub continue.

Cool link of the day: Read about the C.S. Lewis Collection at Taylor University.

Purchase a copy of the C.S. Lewis print (pictured above) here.

0 Comment(s):

Post a Comment

<< Home