Quotations
and Allusions in
C.
S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
compiled by Arend Smilde (Utrecht, The
Netherlands)
References are to paragraph numbers in the first edition (Oxford University
Press 1943); for greater certainty the first four words of each
paragraph referred to are added in small capitals. No references are given where Lewis gave adequate notes, and no information
from his notes is repeated here. The list is based on the notes added tot my
Dutch translation of The Abolition of Man, published in 1997 (De afschaffing van de mens, 5th
edition 2011).
I have pointed out several
small differences between The Abolition of Man’s first (1943) and second
(1946) editions. These improvements in the second edition have found their way,
as far as I know, into all American editions. The British Fount edition (1978)
however has not incorporated them and consistently follows the 1943 text.
Another page of the present website
offers a 2,000-word Summary of the book, followed by a much briefer of just
over 300 words.
I apologize for telling you
that Shelley was “an English poet” if you already knew that, and further apologize for not telling you
that Plato was “a Greek philosopher”, should that be news to you.
I still hope there will be at least a couple of interesting items for any user.
Double question marks – ?? – indicate my failure to find the information
I wanted to give. Corrections and additions (including new
entries) are welcome.
Chapter I: MEN WITHOUT CHESTS
motto
So he sent the word to slay, etc.
From the Christmas Carol, “Unto us is born a Son”. “...This did Herod sore affray,
/ And grievously bewilder, / So he sent the word to slay / And slew the little childer.”
para. 1 [i doubt whether we...]
Gaius and Titius, The
Green Book
This book is The Control of Language: A critical approach to reading and
writing, by Alex King and Martin Ketley,
published in 1939. “Gaius” and “Titius”
are, in classical Latin, generally representative standard fictitious names; in
colloquial Italian, un tizio is still
used as a word for “a guy”, “a fellow”.
para. 2 [in their second chapter...]
the well-known story of Coleridge at the
waterfall
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1772–1834), English poet and philosopher. Lewis
appears to be referring to a passage in Dorothy Wordsworth’s Recollections of a Tour in Scotland, A.D.
1803 (published in 1874, edited by
J. C. Shairp), and to rely on The Green Book
for the way he cites it. There are considerable differences with the original
account, although the point Lewis wants to make can still be based on it.
Dorothy was the sister of William
Wordsworth (see note to next par.) and was making the tour with him and
Coleridge. The scene at the waterfall – Cora Linn, near New Lanark – appears in
her account of 21 August 1803 (p. 37 of the 1874 edition):
... we had different views of the Linn. We sat
upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down
upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more
expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the
seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge,
who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom
he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was
a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet,
particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the
words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with
William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a
majestic waterfall.” “Sublime and beautiful,” replied his friend. Poor
Coleridge could make no answer, and, not very desirous to continue the
conversation, came to us and related the story, laughing heartily.
No one actually calls the waterfall
“pretty”, and there are no signs of
actual “disgust” on the part of Coleridge. What presumably made him laugh was
that the gentleman was using “sublime” and “beautiful” as near-equivalent
terms. Educated literary people like Wordsworth and Coleridge in those days
were all familiar with Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful (1756), in
which the two terms are completely opposed to each other:
Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more
openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. (II.2, “Terror”)
By beauty I mean that quality or those qualities in
bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it. (III.1, “Of Beauty”)
Coleridge was perhaps not so much rejecting the gentleman’s judgement as
making fun of his sloppy language and thinking. At the same time he probably
felt some real concern about the wrongness of the epithet “beautiful” for the
waterfall.
In 20th-century language, Coleridge’s
sense of incongruity here was certainly better rendered by the word “pretty”
than by “beautiful”. The Green Book
being intended for school children, the authors were therefore justified in
retelling the story this way – although it would perhaps have been advisable
and easy for them to make their point wit a different story without so much
editing. The same is true for Lewis; but he was criticizing their point, not
their example. A little confusion is added by Lewis only when he calls the
story “well-known” while citing a very imperfect version of it.
para. 5 [before considering the philosophical...]
Johnson’s famous passage
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English writer, poet, literary critic and
lexicographer. The fame of this passage, like Johnson’s own, is partly due to
his biographer James Boswell. It was Boswell who selected this passage as an
example of the “sublimity” of Johnson’s style.
Iona
Island on the western coast of Scotland, site of an ancient abbey dating
from the sixth century A.D.
Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet.
Lamb, Virgil, Thomas Browne, Mr. de la Mare
Charles Lamb (1775–1834), English essayist, critic, poet, a friend of Wordsworth
and Coleridge; Virgil (70–19 B.C.), Roman poet, author of the Aeneid;
Thomas Browne (1605–1682), English physician and writer famed for his
“poetical” prose; Walter de la Mare
(1873–1956), English poet, novelist and short-story writer.
para. 6 [but it is not...]
Orbilius
The book referred to is The Reading and Writing of English (1936) by
E. G. Biaggini. The pseudonym is the name of an
ancient Roman language teacher, Lucius Orbilius Pupillus. According to
Horace (Epistulae II.1, 70) his rude treatment
of pupils translating Homer got him the nickname “Orbilius
with the Ferule”, Orbilius Plagosus. The idea to use this name for a modern
language teacher (and so to accuse him of rudeness) likely came to Lewis from
the example of Thomas Fuller’s Worthies of England (1662). Writing about
Richard Mulcaster, language teacher of the young
Edmund Spenser in the years 1561–1569, Fuller describes Mulcaster’s
“severity” and calls him plagosus Orbilius. See Lewis’s English Literature in the
Sixteenth Century, p. 350, where Lewis appears to construe this
“severity” as “cruelty”. Michael Stapleton in his Cambridge Guide to English
Literature (1983) describes Mulcaster as “a
teacher of formidable quality and a man with a passionate devotion to the
possibilities of English as a literary language; the schoolboy Spenser was
already practising the poet’s craft as Mulcaster’s pupil.’
Ruksh and Sleipnir and the weeping horses of Achilles
and the charger in the Book of Job
– Ruksh is Rustum’s
horse in Matthew Arnold’s poem “Sohrab and Rustum” (1853). “So arm’d, he
issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, / Followed him
like a faithful hound at heel” (270–271). Ruksh
grieved over the fate of his master Rustum and the
latter’s son Sohrab: “and from his dark,
compassionate eyes / The big warm tears roll’d down,
and caked the sand” (735–736).
– Sleipnir, in Germanic mythology, is Wodan’s eight-legged horse.
– The Greek hero Achilles’s two horses,
Xanthus and Balius, appear in Ilias
XVI.148–154, XVII.426–428 (where they weep over the death of Patroklos), and XIX.400–424.
– The “charger” is the horse described in Job 39, 19–25.
Brer Rabbit
Principal character in the “Uncle Remus” stories,
by J. C. Harris (c. 1848–1908).
Peter Rabbit
Principal character in the children’s
book of the same name, by Beatrix Potter (1866–1943).
ordinate love
The phrase certainly anticipates the references to Augustine’s ordo amoris and
Aristotle’s “ordinate affections” in para. 10, notes
11 and 13.
para. 8 [but i doubt
whether...]
Dr. Richards
Ivor Armstrong
Richards (1893–1979), British linguist and literary critic; his books include The
Meaning of Meaning (1923), Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), Science
and Poetry (1925), Practical Criticism (1929), and How to Read a
Page (1942). See also Lewis’s second note to Chapter II.
para. 10 [until quite modern times...]
Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), English poet.
Traherne
Thomas Traherne (1637–1674), English mystical prose writer, poet and
divine. The Centuries of Meditations were not published until 1908.
NB “Century” in the book’s title means not one hundred years, but a hundred
simply: the book contains “hundreds of meditations”.
Plato said that the Good was “beyond existence”
Plato, Republic, Book VI (509c), in Jowett’s translation
(1894; Dover Thrift Editions 2000, p. 174):
...the good may be said to be not
only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and
essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.
In Robin Waterfield’s
translation (World’s Classics, Oxford U.P. 1993, p. 236):
...it isn’t only the known-ness of the things we know which is conferred upon them by
goodness, but also their reality and their being, although goodness isn’t
actually the state of being, but surpasses being in majesty and might.
Lewis referred to the phrase in a
letter of January 1928 to Owen Barfield; see Collected Letters III, p. 1634.
Wordsworth ... through virtue the stars were strong
A reference to William Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty” (1805), stanza 7:
Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
Nor know we any thing so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And Fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;
And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.
para. 11 [this conception in all...]
‘the Tao’
A fundamental concept in ancient Chinese philosophy. Lewis is adopting the
Confucian interpretation of it while disregarding the rival Taoist view.
Confucius (551–479 B.C.) and the Confucian school talked of Tao as “the
Way” – a more or less obviously recommendable code of conduct. Taoists, on the
other hand, following Lao Tze (c. 600 B.C.)
and the Tao Te Ching, have always insisted on
the impossibility of saying anything about Tao. For them, Tao is
“the Whole”. Since there can be nothing else beside “the Whole”, and the
function of words is (in Taoism) to mark the boundary between what a thing is
and what it is not, Tao can be said to be in a very literal sense
indefinable. There are no words about it because there are no boundaries to it.
para. 14 [perhaps this will become...]
dulce et decorum
(Latin) “sweet and seemly” – as Lewis translates at the beginning of this
paragraph. Quoted from Horace, Odes III.2, 3.
para. 16 [but this course , though...]
the chest – the seat, as Alanus tells us, of
Magnanimity
Alanus ab Insulis, or Alain de Lille (c.
1125–1203), was a French scholar reputed to be a universally learned man. As a
theologian he contributed towards a mystical counter-movement against Scholasticism;
as a defender of the Christian faith he presented it as founded on self-evident
basic principles. His poem De planctu naturae (‘Nature’s Complaint’or
“The Plaint of Kind”) is a satire on human vice. In The Allegory of Love
(1936), C. S. Lewis describes him as a poet in the “School of Chartres”; and
admitting that the Plaint “is difficult to read, and rather more
difficult to buy”, he translates two long fragments, one of which includes the
remark about Magnaniimity (Allegory, p. 109).
Chapter II: THE WAY
para. 1 [the practical result of...]
εν δε φαει και ολεσσον
(Greek) “Kill us in broad daylight!” Homer, Iliad XVII, 647. (Sorry
for omitting the diacritics!)
para. 2 [however subjective they may...]
It would not be difficult to collect...
In the first edition, the word “difficult” was followed by “(though it
would be unkind)”. Thus the passage ran, “It would not be difficult (though it
would be unkind) to collect...’
para. 11 [finally, it is worth...]
Olaf Stapledon
British writer and philosopher (1886–1950); his works include what he
called “fantastic fiction of a philosophic kind”. Denying that religion and a
belief in immortality were of any use, he postulated a sort of
god-in-development. His philosophical works include A Modern Theory of
Ethics (1929), Philosophy and Living (1939) and Beyond the “Isms”
(1942). Much like C. S. Lewis, he would deliberately blend his view of life
into his science fiction books – which
include Last and First Men (1930), Odd John (1935), Star Maker (1937), and Sirius
(1944).
para. 12 [the truth finally becomes...]
cuor gentil
Probably a reference to Dante, Inferno V, 100; Amor, ch’al cor gentil
ratto s’apprende
(‘Love, rapidly clinging to noble hearts”).
the Chün-tzu, the gentleman or cuor gentil.
In the second edition this was changed into “the Chün-tzu,
the cuor gentil
or gentleman.’
‘Do as you would be done by” say Jesus and Confucius both.
In the second edition this was changed into “...says Jesus.’
Humani nihil a me alienum puto
(Latin) “Nothing human is alien to me.” Terentius, Heautontimoroumenos
(‘The Self-Tormenter”) I.1, 25. More fully quoted by Lewis in the Appendix, I (
b).
para. 14 [the innovator, for example...]
a duty to our own kin, because they are our own kin, a part of traditional
morality
In the second edition, “a part of” is preceded by “is”. The corrected
passage runs: “a duty to our own kin, because they are our own kin, is a part
of traditional morality.’
para. 17 [a theorist about language...]
a great poet, who has “loved, and been well nurtured in, his mother tongue’
John Keats (1795–1821), The Fall of Hyperion I, 13–15. “Since every
man whose soul is not a clod / Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved /
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.’
para. 18 [in the same way...]
...the Tao admits development from within.
In the second edition (1946), Lewis inserted after this sentence a long
passage almost literally taken from his essay “The Poison of Subjectivism”. The
inserted passage is the one running from From
the [Stoic and] Confucian “Do not do to others... until
...eating bricks and centipedes instead.” After that, the 1943 text is resumed, “Those
who understand the spirit of the Tao and who have been led”, etc.
Chapter III: THE ABOLITION OF MAN
motto
It came burning hot into my mind, etc.
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress,
ed. James Blanton Wharey, 2nd edition revised by
Roger Sharrock (Oxford 1960), Part I, p. 70. The passage
comes from the discourse between Christian and Faithful, shortly after the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. Lewis quoted the same words at the end of his
essay “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” as published in 1949.
para. 5 [i am not yet...]
Clotho
Clotho is one of
the three Moirai, or goddesses of Fate, in the
ancient Greek pantheon. Each was considered to perform an important task
regarding a human being’s “thread of life”; Clotho
was the one who spun it, Lachesis gave it out, Atropos cut it off.
para. 6 [for the power of..]
Elyot
Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1490–1546), British scholar, diplomat and
Member of Parliament. The Governour (1531) is
his principal work.
Locke
John Locke (1632–1704), British philosopher and physician.
para. 8 [to some it will...]
to scorn delight and live laborious days
John Milton, Lycidas (1637), 72.
petitio
In full, a petitio principii,
a case of “begging the question”; a logical error which consists in setting out
to prove something by argument and then quietly or onconsciously
assuming it to be self-evident.
para. 9 [yet the conditioners will...]
sic volo, sic jubeo
(Latin) “This I will, this I command.” Juvenal, Satire VI (against women),
line 223. The full saying is Sic volo, sic iubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas: “This I will, this I command: let [my] will
takes Reason’s place.’
para. 10 [at the moment , then...]
Ferum victorem cepit
(Latin) “...and captured her savage conqueror.” Horace, Epistles II.2,
156–157. The “savage conqueror” is Rome, “capturing” Greece on the battlefield
in 168 B.C. only to see the Greeks “capturing” Rome in the field of arts and
culture. The full passage is Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti Latio, “Greece, when captured, captured her savage
conqueror and brought the arts into rustic Latium.’
para. 11 [my point may be...]
Nature is a word of varying meanings
In a later book, Studies in Words (Cambridge University Press,
1960), C. S. Lewis spent fifty pages on the various meanings of “Nature”.
para. 12 [from this point of...]
always conquering Nature, because “Nature” is...
In the second edition, the word “because” is not in italics.
para. 14 [i am not here...]
υλη
Greek for “matter”, “raw material”; also for timber or firewood.
para. 15 [the true significance of...]
L.C.M.
In the second edition this was changed into “H.C.F.” So apparently what
Lewis realized he actually meant was not Lowest Common Multiple, but Highest
Common Factor.
para. 16 [nothing i can say...]
Bacon
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), British statesman, philosopher and essayist. See
also his later work Novum Organum (“New
Instrument”), I.3 and I.81. It is quite usual, and certainly no original idea of
Lewis’s, to characterize Bacon as “chief trumpeter of the new era” or something
similar. Bacon himself famously called an earlier Italian philosopher and
scientist, Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588) “the first
of the moderns” (novorum hominum primum), but was not an unqualified admirer of him (Parmenidis, Telesii et Democriti Philosophia, in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Basil
Montagu, Vol. 11, 1829, p. 144).
Marlowe’s Faustus
The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus, a tragedy in blank verse and prose by Bacon’s contemporary Christopher
Marlowe (1564–1593). Faustus was a semi-legendary magician and astrologer in
early sixteenth-century Germany. He became the habitual hero of stories about
the magician selling his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power
– or chiefly for power, as Lewis suggests.
Paracelcus
Pseudonym of Theophrastus von Hohenheim
(1493–1541), Swiss physician and alchemist. He considered the human body to be
a microcosm reflecting in each of its parts some particular part of the
Macrocosm, or Universe.
para. 17 [is it, then, possible...]
Dr. Steiner
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), founder of Anthroposophy, editor of Goethe’s
scientific works. He assumed the existence of a spiritual world which we might
get knowlegde of by (a training of) our highest
cognitive powers.
Martin Buber
German Jewish theologian, Biblical scholar, Bible translator, philosopher
of religion and a master of German prose (1878–1965). Having abandoned early
mystical views about union of God an man, he published his Ich
und Du (‘I and Thou”) in 1923. An encounter (not union) of God and
man is here presented as, ideally, a model for all human relationships,
especially those with fellow-humans. The reduction of any Thou to an It
ought to be resisted. As Buber explained, in some other century he might have
felt impelled to preach the opposite message, but clearly his own time called
for a rehablitation of this “Thou”.
para. 18 [perhaps i am asking...]
basilisk
Legendary snake-like animal, a frequent subject or element of stories from
ancient times until the seventeenth century. Eyes were not its only weapon;
among other things its breath, too, was thought to be lethal.
sui generis
(Latin) “a class of its own”, not reducible to or explainable from anything
else.
UPDATES
14 August 2008 (two corrections in references to Iliad)
8 Febrary 2011 (added notes on Plato and
Wordsworth in ch. I, para.
10)
16 March 2011 (added note on the Bunyan quote serving as the motto for ch. III)
8 January 2012 (expanded note on the
well-known story of Coleridge in ch. I, para. 2); with thanks to Sam Schulman and Jan Dirk Snel)