Which C.S. Lewis work was first delivered as the Riddell Memorial Lectures in 1943?

The Abolition of Man was first delivered as the Riddell Memorial Lectures in 1943.

C.S. Lewis gave the three Riddell Memorial Lectures at the University of Durham in February 1943. The lectures were published later that year as The Abolition of Man. In them, Lewis defended objective value and criticized forms of education that, in his view, reduced moral judgments to subjective emotion or mere conditioning.

The work is organized around three lectures: “Men Without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man.” Lewis uses the term “the Tao” for a cross-cultural system of basic moral principles, not for a narrow claim that all traditions are identical. He argues that rejecting objective value could ultimately damage human nature and human agency.

The title is sometimes read as a political slogan or confused with a science-fiction novel. It is primarily a philosophical and educational critique, and its lecture origins explain its compact, structured form.