This is an excerpt from
Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis:
The Three Parts of Morality
There is a story
about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God
was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was "The
sort of person who is always snooping round to see if anyone is enjoying
himself and then trying to stop it." And I am afraid that is the sort
of idea that the word Morality raises in a good many people's minds:
something that interferes, something that stops you having a good time.
In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine.
Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a
friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at
first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations.
When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps
on saying, "No, don't do it like that," because, of course, there are
all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way
of treating the machine, but do not really work.
Some people prefer to talk about moral "ideals" rather than moral
rules and about moral "idealism" rather than moral obedience. Now it is,
of course, quite true that moral perfection is an "ideal" in the sense
that we cannot achieve it. In that sense every kind of perfection is,
for us humans, an ideal; we cannot succeed in being perfect car drivers
or perfect tennis players or in drawing perfectly straight lines. But
there is another sense in which it is very misleading to call moral
perfection an ideal. When a man says that a certain woman, or house, or
ship, or garden is "his ideal" he does not mean (unless he is rather a
fool) that everyone else ought to have the same ideal. In such matters
we are entitled to have different tastes and, therefore, different
ideals. But it is dangerous to describe a man who tries very hard to
keep the moral law as a "man of high ideals," because this might lead
you to think that moral perfection was a private taste of his own and
that the rest of us were not called on to share it. This would be a
disastrous mistake. Perfect behaviour may be as unattainable as perfect
gear-changing when we drive; but it is a necessary ideal prescribed for
all men by the very nature of the human machine just as perfect
gear-changing is an ideal prescribed for all drivers by the very nature
of cars. And it would be even more dangerous to think of oneself as a
person "of high ideals" because one is trying to tell no lies at all
(instead of only a few lies) or never to commit adultery (instead of
committing it only seldom) or not to be a bully (instead of being only a
moderate bully). It might lead you to become a prig and to think you
were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his
"idealism." In reality you might just as well expect to be congratulated
because, whenever you do a sum, you try to get it quite right. To be
sure, perfect arithmetic is "an ideal"; you will certainly make some
mistakes in some calculations. But there is nothing very fine about
trying to be quite accurate at each step in each sum. It would be
idiotic not to try; for every mistake is going to cause you trouble
later on. In the same way every moral failure is going to cause trouble,
probably to others and certainly to yourself. By talking about rules
and obedience instead of "ideals" and "idealism" we help to remind
ourselves of these facts.
Now let us go a step further. There are two ways in which the human
machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one
another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by
cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the
individual-when the different parts of him (his different faculties and
desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another. You
can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing
in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if
the ships do not collide and get in one another's way; and, secondly, if
each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter
of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other.
If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy
very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order
they will not be able to avoid collisions. Or, if you like, think of
humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two
things. Each player's individual instrument must be in tune and also
each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the
others.
But there is one thing we have not yet taken into account. We have
not asked where the fleet is trying to get to, or what piece of music
the band is trying to play. The instruments might be all in tune and
might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would
not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and
actually played nothing but Dead Marches. And however well the fleet
sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York
and actually arrived at Calcutta.
Morality, then, seems to be concerned with three things. Firstly,
with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what
might be called tidying up or harmonising the things inside each
individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole:
what man was made for: what course the whole fleet ought to be on: what
tune the conductor of the band wants it to play.
You may have noticed that modern people are nearly always thinking
about the first thing and forgetting the other two. When people say in
the newspapers that we are striving for Christian moral standards, they
usually mean that we are striving for kindness and fair play between
nations, and classes, and individuals; that is, they are thinking only
of the first thing. When a man says about something he wants to do, "It
can't be wrong because it doesn't do anyone else any harm," he is
thinking only of the first thing. He is thinking it does not matter what
his ship is like inside provided that he does not run into the next
ship. And it is quite natural, when we start thinking about morality, to
begin with the first thing, with social relations. For one thing, the
results of bad morality in that sphere are so obvious and press on us
every day: war and poverty and graft and lies and shoddy work. And also,
as long as you stick to the first thing, there is very little
disagreement about morality. Almost all people at all times have agreed
(in theory) that human beings ought to be honest and kind and helpful to
one another. But though it is natural to begin with all that, if our
thinking about morality stops there, we might just as well not have
thought at all. Unless we go on to the second thing-the tidying up
inside each human being-we are only deceiving ourselves.
What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid
collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be
steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for
social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill
temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do
not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about
improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that
all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing
but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make
any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular
kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as
long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of
carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good
by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society. That is why
we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the
individual.
But I do not think we can stop there either. We are now getting to
the point at which different beliefs about the universe lead to
different behaviour. And it would seem, at first sight, very sensible to
stop before we got there, and just carry on with those parts of
morality that all sensible people agree about. But can we? Remember that
religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be
either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will
follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false,
quite a different set. For example, let us go back to the man who says
that a thing cannot be wrong unless it hurts some other human being. He
quite understands that he must not damage the other ships in the convoy,
but he honestly thinks that what he does to his own ship is simply his
own business. But does it not make a great difference whether his ship
is his own property or not? Does it not make a great difference whether I
am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a
tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for
his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not
have if I simply belonged to myself.
Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is
going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there
are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I
were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother
about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad
temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse -so gradually that the
increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be
absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell
is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be. And
immortality makes this other difference, which, by the by, has a
connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If
individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a
civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important
than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is
not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is
everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with
his, is only a moment.
It seems, then, that if we are to think about morality, we must think
of all three departments: relations between man and man: things inside
each man: and relations between man and the power that made him. We can
all cooperate in the first one. Disagreements begin with the second and
become serious with the third. It is in dealing with the third that the
main differences between Christian and non-Christian morality come out.
For the rest of this book (Mere Christianity) I am going to assume the Christian point of
view, and look at the whole picture as it will be if Christianity is
true.
Several weeks ago, I was driving
on the freeway a distance that took about 45 minutes to drive. About 20 minutes
from my destination, I noticed a truck following me very closely. Not only was
this truck following me, but this truck also had its brights on. I changed
lanes and then became frustrated because the truck changed into the same lane
behind me! The truck followed me for about 10 minutes with its brights on. I
started glaring into my rear-view mirror at the truck (that always
works ;) ). Because the brights were on and I was glaring so intently, when I
turned to look back at the road, I could no longer see. I was blinded by what
was going on behind me. In fact, it took my eyes several seconds to be able to
see what was going on in front of me again.
The Apostle, Paul, said,
"This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians
3:13–14)."
