Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The tune we have to play (The moral law)

For example, some people wrote to me saying, ‘Isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?’ Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct—by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way.  And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct.boy-and-dog-practising-piano But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires—one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self- preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952, this edition: 2001) 9-10.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Ken,

    Thanks so much for your insightful posts! I love C. S. Lewis, and these small snippets of wisdom each day are great!

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  2. Love this first part of Mere Christianity. Great job, Ken!

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  3. Hi Jimmy, welcome to Mere C.S. Lewis. It's great to hear from you and I'm very happy you like the blog. I'm sure that we could all benefit from spending more time with Lewis and I hope this blog helps some of us do that -- I know it's helping me.

    Thanks again for stopping by. Be sure to tell your friends :)
    Ken

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  4. The 'piano keys' metaphor is one of my favorite Lewis-isms. So compelling and insightful. What a gift you're giving all of us, Ken. This site is a daily stop for me now, and I know I'm better for it!

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  5. Thanks Scott and Margaret. Love getting the feedback and I'm very happy that you're finding benefit in making a daily stop at Mere C.S. Lewis. I know that I benefit from preparing it daily so it's great to know that others are benefiting from it too :)

    Wouldn't it be great if we could all get together some time and talk about Lewis over coffee?

    The C.S. Lewis Society of NY let me know that there was a Toronto C.S. Lewis Society, but unfortunately it has folded. I'm trying to find the former members to see if there would be any interest in restarting it. If anyone reading this is a member of a C.S. Lewis Society, please post a comment and let us know what that experience is like.

    Thanks,
    Ken

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