From The Abolition of Man
Lewis gave us a way out. The crisis of the West that started with Bacon said that nature was a quantity versus a quality. Man has reduced nature to a mere quantity so we can control it. We lose quality and the human self in this; the full understanding of reality emerges in quality. We need a new natural philosophy.
Lewis spoke of “men without chests”:
1. Man cuts out imagination.
2. Emotion is left easy to manipulate when it is cut out. No emotional training.
3. The right defense is just sentiments. Appetite and the spirit are mediated by the chest. Emotion must be trained for the middle way of the chest.
Some things can just not be proven, they are self-evident. Lewis suggest that “the Tao” or “the Way” functions as a universal natural law, a doctrine of objective value that cannot be denied. Emotions can correspond to reality or not. Education is required to make someone fully human. He warns that dialectical arguments can have the high cost of objecting to objective arguments.
Man can see a way out by stepping into the Tao. Put on spiritual goggles / glasses to see a richly elaborated life in the Tao.