What phrase describes spiritually underdeveloped people in C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man?

“Men without chests” describes spiritually underdeveloped people in C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Lewis uses the phrase to criticize an education that trains the intellect while neglecting the emotions and moral formation.

The phrase appears in the book’s middle chapter, “The Way.” Lewis argues that the chest represents the trained sentiments that connect reason with instinct. Without such formation, people may possess powerful thought and appetite but lack the character needed to guide either.

The Abolition of Man originated as three lectures delivered at the University of Durham in 1943. Lewis published them as a book that same year, during the Second World War.

The expression is often paraphrased as “men without hearts,” but that is not Lewis’s wording. “Men without chests” is the distinctive phrase and refers to a missing moral and emotional center, not a literal physical condition.