What was C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book of Christian literary criticism about the dangers of modern education?

The Abolition of Man was C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book about the dangers of modern education.

The book developed from three lectures Lewis delivered at the University of Durham in 1943. He criticized an approach to education that, in his view, treated moral judgments as nothing more than subjective feelings. Lewis argued that education should cultivate reason and character rather than merely train students to manipulate the world.

The work is structured in three chapters: “Men Without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man.” Its central argument draws on what Lewis called the Tao, a shared framework of objective moral values found across cultures and traditions. The term is not limited to the Chinese philosophical tradition in the book’s usage.

The title does not describe the literal extinction of humanity. It refers to the possibility that technological power and moral subjectivism could reduce human beings’ capacity for judgment and virtue.