What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book on education and moral formation?

The Abolition of Man is C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book on education, morality, and the danger of rejecting objective values.

The work developed from three lectures Lewis delivered at the University of Durham in February 1943. He criticized an approach to education that treated moral judgments as nothing more than personal feelings. Lewis argued that human societies have traditionally recognized shared moral principles, which he called the Tao.

The book is divided into three chapters: “Men Without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man.” Its final section considers how technological control over nature could eventually become control over human nature itself.

The title does not refer to the immediate extinction of humanity. It describes the possible loss of qualities Lewis regarded as distinctively human, including reason, moral judgment, and disciplined emotion. The book remains influential in discussions of education, ethics, technology, and political philosophy.