C.S.Lewis and the Doctine of the Unchanging Human Heart
Raymond Brisebois
I'm wondering if there are any English majors (or comparative
literature specialists in epic literature, or a specialist in the
works of C.S.Lewis) who might be able to assist with some textual
clarification.
I'm currently reading Lewis' _A Preface to Paradise Lost_ and came
across a reference to a term which remains unknown to me, despite
searching through the preceding text (some 60-odd pages).
In Chapter IX "The Doctrine of the Unchanging Human Heart" Lewis
writes:
"How are these gulfs between the ages to be dealt with by the student
of poetry? A method often recommended may be called the method of The
Unchanging Human Heart. According to this method the things which
separate one age from another are superficial. Just as, if we
stripped the armour off a medieval knight or the lace off a Caroline
courtier, we should find beneath them an anatomy identical with our
own, so, it is held, if we strip off from Virgil his Roman
imperialism, from Sidney his code of honour, from Lucretius his
Epicurean philosophy, and from all who have it their religion, we
shall find the Unchanging Human Heart, and on this we are to
concentrate ... But I have come to doubt whether the study of this
mere L.C.M. is the best end the student of old poetry can set before
himself. If we are in search of the L.C.M. then, in every poem, we
are tempted to treat as the most important those elements which belong
to the L.C.M. which remain when when we have finished the
stripping-off process ... Logicians will perceive that the fallacy of
the Unchanging Human Heart is one more instance of the L.C.M. view of
the universal -- the idea that an engine is most truly an engine if it
is neither driven by steam nor gas nor electricity, neither stationary
nor locomotive, neither big nor small. But in reality you understand
enginehood or humanity or any other universal precisely by studying
all the different things it can become -- by following the branches of
the tree, not by cutting them off."
I am unable determine what Lewis refers to by "L.C.M."
Thanks in advance for your kind assistance.
rB
George Durbridge
rjl...@hotmail.com (Raymond Brisebois) wrote:
I'm not familiar with the book, but it would be most unlike
Lewis to use such an expression, without giving you the full
form. I suspect that earlier in the book, or even in the
chapter, you will find the abbreviation introduced, by
apposing it to the full form (but don't expect "hereinafter
called the L.C.M." - he will expect you to be reading
closely). By saying "one more instance of the L.C.M. view
of the universal", Lewis makes it plain that he has used the
expression previously in the book, so look out that passage.
Just looking at how he uses it in your quote, I would guess
"lowest common m....". "Multiple" is possible, but doesn't
fit the sense very well.
Gordon
gdur...@bigpond.net.au says...
Least Common Multiple, in that same figurative sense as the colloquial
use of the term "Lowest Common Denominator" might well be what Lewis
means here.
>
--
Gordon
"I have just as much authority as the Pope.
I just don't have as many people who believe it."
average conrad
was: an allegorical Christian writer. The Doctrine of the Unchanging Human
Heart is merely the doctrine of the intrinsic sinfulness and fallen nature
of man in the eyes of God; the L.C.D. or whatever being that which in all of
us is made to rebel against God's nature.
Ed Cryer
"Raymond Brisebois" <rjl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3163e90c.03052...@posting.google.com...
The OED gives L.C.M. as lowest (or least ) common multiple. And I think this
dovetails precisely with what Lewis means here by "unchanging human heart".
Consider it this way. In the 'Iliad' Homer has a great passage where Hector
is saying goodbye to his wife Andromache, before going out to face Achilles.
Try reading it as if it were a soldier off to Iraq; you'll find that (when
stripped of the fashions of the day etc.) there's a basic thing that you can
relate to.
It's the same with Dido in the 'Aeneid', or even Mark Antony's trailing
behind Cleopatra's skirts in real history.
Lucretius wrote something that counted as the scientific view 2,000 years
ago. It's easy to laugh at some of the passages as naive and antiquated, but
consider the man writing this. He was like you or I. He might not have known
much about a quantum universe, but he had both a questioning mind and a
conviction that the world was scientifically knowable. Like Aristotle before
him.
Did you ever see 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'? They went back to get
Socrates. They couln't even speak his language, but there was a rapport
between them that came across well.
I take this to be the unchanging human heart.
Ed
Bill Rogers
Well, he was an allegorical Christian writer. But he was, both before
and after his conversion, an English don, interested in classical and
medieval poetry. I think the "unchanging human heart" bit has little
to do with his religious beliefs and is more like the simple claim
that people in different times and cultures experience the world
rather similarly. The claim that, say, Dido's experience of falling in
love with Aeneas is similar to that of some "woman who loved too much"
confessing all on Oprah Winfrey, although perhaps expressed more
beautifully and with more dignity. I think his point has not much at
all to do with "fallen" human nature.
Bill
George Durbridge
Gordon <moi...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> Least Common Multiple, in that same figurative sense
> as the colloquial use of the term "Lowest Common
> Denominator" might well be what Lewis means here.
You may well be right. The reason why I hesitated is that
the sense requires a factor (or multiplier), rather than a
multiple (or product), and the least common factor of any
two numbers is trivially 1. I would not have expected Lewis
to use a nonsensical expression to carry the burden of his
argument, even if it is an established idiom.
Gordon
gdur...@bigpond.net.au says...
Yes, presumably Lewis does not mean the trivial factor of 1. The Lowest
Common Denominator and the Least Common Multiple are different, but the
concepts are related-- the latter is used to generate the former. That
LCM/LCD would then be the Basic Common Ground that all human beings
share.
Bear in mind that, yes, Lewis is a committed Christian writer as well as
an English don. That means that for him, the LCM/LCD of humanity is not
its fallen nature or original sin-- that is a mere accident and not the
essence of humanity-- it is being the image of God, reflecting God's
nature. But that's a different discussion...
Raymond Brisebois
> "Raymond Brisebois" <rjl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3163e90c.03052...@posting.google.com...
[...}
> > I'm currently reading Lewis' _A Preface to Paradise Lost_ and came
> > across a reference to a term which remains unknown to me, despite
> > searching through the preceding text (some 60-odd pages).
> >
> > In Chapter IX "The Doctrine of the Unchanging Human Heart" Lewis
> > writes:
[...]
> > so, it is held, if we strip off from Virgil his Roman
> > imperialism, from Sidney his code of honour, from Lucretius his
> > Epicurean philosophy, and from all who have it their religion, we
> > shall find the Unchanging Human Heart, and on this we are to
> > concentrate ... But I have come to doubt whether the study of this
> > mere L.C.M. is the best end the student of old poetry can set before
> > himself. If we are in search of the L.C.M. then, in every poem, we
> > are tempted to treat as the most important those elements which belong
> > to the L.C.M. which remain when when we have finished the
> > stripping-off process ... Logicians will perceive that the fallacy of
> > the Unchanging Human Heart is one more instance of the L.C.M. view of
> > the universal -- the idea that an engine is most truly an engine if it
> > is neither driven by steam nor gas nor electricity, neither stationary
> > nor locomotive, neither big nor small. But in reality you understand
> > enginehood or humanity or any other universal precisely by studying
> > all the different things it can become -- by following the branches of
> > the tree, not by cutting them off."
> >
> > I am unable determine what Lewis refers to by "L.C.M."
>
> The OED gives L.C.M. as lowest (or least ) common multiple. And I think this
> dovetails precisely with what Lewis means here by "unchanging human heart".
>
> Consider it this way. In the 'Iliad' Homer has a great passage where Hector
> is saying goodbye to his wife Andromache, before going out to face Achilles.
> Try reading it as if it were a soldier off to Iraq; you'll find that (when
> stripped of the fashions of the day etc.) there's a basic thing that you can
> relate to.
> It's the same with Dido in the 'Aeneid', or even Mark Antony's trailing
> behind Cleopatra's skirts in real history.
>
> Lucretius wrote something that counted as the scientific view 2,000 years
> ago. It's easy to laugh at some of the passages as naive and antiquated, but
> consider the man writing this. He was like you or I. He might not have known
> much about a quantum universe, but he had both a questioning mind and a
> conviction that the world was scientifically knowable. Like Aristotle before
> him.
>
> Did you ever see 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'? They went back to get
> Socrates. They couln't even speak his language, but there was a rapport
> between them that came across well.
>
> I take this to be the unchanging human heart.
>
> Ed
A most excellent response (thank you also, Gordon -- George, you
missed the part where I mentioned I had scoured ALL the preceeding
text in the book; thank you Ed. I particularly appreciated the "Bill
and Ted" reference -- excellent!!
rB
Doug
For example, there are certain aspects of men vs. women, adult vs child,
that simply do not change no matter what era we live in? This is the
Unchanging Human Heart...
Doug
--
Why watch it when you can Replay it?
Replay ID 00004-54831-74727
"Raymond Brisebois" <rjl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3163e90c.03052...@posting.google.com...
Mike Lyle
[...]
> Just looking at how he uses it in your quote, I would guess
> "lowest common m....". "Multiple" is possible, but doesn't
> fit the sense very well.
Remembering prep-school arithmetic, I'm tempted to wonder if Lewis
actually meant not "Lowest Common Multiple", but "HCF" -- Highest
Common Factor. The passage does seem to be decrying an approach which
could be regarded as inappropriately mathematical, and HCF would, I
think, fit the sense.
Mike.
John W. Kennedy
> I think before you go off on goose-hunts you should consider who C.S.Lewis
> was: an allegorical Christian writer.
Oh for God's sake, he wrote precisely one allegory in his entire career!
> The Doctrine of the Unchanging Human
> Heart is merely the doctrine of the intrinsic sinfulness and fallen nature
> of man in the eyes of God; the L.C.D. or whatever being that which in all of
> us is made to rebel against God's nature.
No. Not even a little bit.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Sweet, was Christ crucified to create this chat?"
-- Charles Williams: "Judgement at Chelmsford"
John W. Kennedy
Lewis was singularly inept at mathematics. He wouldn't have gotten his
degree if he hadn't been excused from the maths requirement.
John W. Kennedy
> Least Common Multiple, in that same figurative sense as the colloquial
> use of the term "Lowest Common Denominator" might well be what Lewis
> means here.
It certainly is. It's a metaphor he uses more than once.
Gordon
jwk...@attglobal.net says...
> average conrad wrote:
> > I think before you go off on goose-hunts you should consider who C.S.Lewis
> > was: an allegorical Christian writer.
>
> Oh for God's sake, he wrote precisely one allegory in his entire career!
Yep, uh huh.
The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
Trilogy.
>
> > The Doctrine of the Unchanging Human
> > Heart is merely the doctrine of the intrinsic sinfulness and fallen nature
> > of man in the eyes of God; the L.C.D. or whatever being that which in all of
> > us is made to rebel against God's nature.
>
> No. Not even a little bit.
--
average conrad
> The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
> as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
> Trilogy.
Thank you. I stand by my original assertion, that the lowest common state
is simply the basic idea of an absolute separation from God and an absolute
need for his redeeming grace, without which all humanity is damned and
unworthy. There's no need to prop up a cookie-cutter writer like Lewis on
wobbly theoretical stilts on account in order to gloss his uncertain use of
a weak math metaphor.
As far as Lewis not being an allegorical writer, or better, a writer of
allegorical stories, I guess you're right. I suppose Dante wrote only
objectively about hell, purgatory, and the empyrean, and I further
conjecture that Augustine's City of God was irrevokably wrong, since it
never appeared. Bunyan! What a literalist! Obviously, Lewis wrote only in
the tradition of these plain and sober writers.
Gordon
averag...@averageconrad.com. says...
>
> > The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
> > as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
> > Trilogy.
>
> Thank you. I stand by my original assertion, that the lowest common state
> is simply the basic idea of an absolute separation from God and an absolute
> need for his redeeming grace, without which all humanity is damned and
> unworthy.
You're welcome to stand there, but you've missed the boat on what Lewis
would consider the basic essence of humanity, and thus the LCM of the
human heart.
> There's no need to prop up a cookie-cutter writer like Lewis on
> wobbly theoretical stilts on account in order to gloss his uncertain use of
> a weak math metaphor.
Nor does slamming a dead writer dignify your argument.
Rich Clancey
+ Yes, presumably Lewis does not mean the trivial factor of 1. The Lowest
+ Common Denominator and the Least Common Multiple are different, but the
+ concepts are related-- the latter is used to generate the former.
Let's get the math straight first. I think everybody means
"Least Common Divisor". The Common Denominator is not
quite the same thing.
You start with a group of numbers and factor each down to
its unique prime factors. The Least Common Divisor is
determined by pulling out the factors which are common to
all of the original numbers, and multiplying them
together. The Least Common Multiple is formed by taking
each common factor the largest number of times it appears,
and multiplying the selected numbers together.
For example, start with 6 and 8. Factor:
6 = 2 * 3
8 = 2 * 2 * 2
The LCD is 2, because 2 shows up once in each
factorization. The LCM is
24 = 2 * 2 * 2 * 3
You need to use the two three times because it shows up three
times in 8, and you need the 3 because 6 has it. You don't
need the other 2 because the 8 already contributed three of
them.
Back to the literary question, then. If Lewis DID mean Least
Common Multiple, it would be NOT what is common to everyone,
but a kind of product of all unique contributions. So that
would include the Nepalese ability to sing two notes at once,
and the Fijian's ability to hold her breath underwater for
two minutes while pearl diving, and the European's ability to
improvise four part organ fugues. All this is what you would
find under the lace and armour. I don't think he used the
term accurately, if this is what he meant.
--
rich clancey r...@world.std.com
"Shun those who deny we have eyes in order to see, and instead say we
see because we happen to have eyes." -- Leibniz
John W. Kennedy
> In article <hnUCa.4664$g62.4...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>,
> jwk...@attglobal.net says...
>>average conrad wrote:
>>>I think before you go off on goose-hunts you should consider who C.S.Lewis
>>>was: an allegorical Christian writer.
>>Oh for God's sake, he wrote precisely one allegory in his entire career!
> Yep, uh huh.
> The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
> as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
> Trilogy.
In short, you haven't the faintest notion of what "allegory" means,
apart from a vague notion that it has something to do with religion.
John W. Kennedy
>>The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
>>as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
>>Trilogy.
> Thank you. I stand by my original assertion, that the lowest common state
> is simply the basic idea of an absolute separation from God and an absolute
> need for his redeeming grace, without which all humanity is damned and
> unworthy.
Learn to parse English sentences before offering your ignorant opinions.
What Lewis says in the passage in question is crystal-clear.
John W. Kennedy
> Back to the literary question, then. If Lewis DID mean Least
> Common Multiple, it would be NOT what is common to everyone,
> but a kind of product of all unique contributions. So that
> would include the Nepalese ability to sing two notes at once,
> and the Fijian's ability to hold her breath underwater for
> two minutes while pearl diving, and the European's ability to
> improvise four part organ fugues. All this is what you would
> find under the lace and armour. I don't think he used the
> term accurately, if this is what he meant.
The Lowest Common Denominator is equal to the Least Common Multiple of
two denominators; to a non-mathematician, they're the same thing. And
the metaphorical use of "Lowest Common Denominator" where a
mathematically trained individual would prefer the metaphor of "Highest
Common Factor" is as ordinary as saying "more than" when actually
meaning "at least". And Lewis, in particular, uses "LCM" in this sense
elsewhere. Honestly, this is a no-brainer.
Gordon
jwk...@attglobal.net says...
> Gordon wrote:
> > In article <hnUCa.4664$g62.4...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>,
> > jwk...@attglobal.net says...
> >>average conrad wrote:
> >>>I think before you go off on goose-hunts you should consider who C.S.Lewis
> >>>was: an allegorical Christian writer.
>
> >>Oh for God's sake, he wrote precisely one allegory in his entire career!
>
> > Yep, uh huh.
>
> > The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
> > as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
> > Trilogy.
>
> In short, you haven't the faintest notion of what "allegory" means,
> apart from a vague notion that it has something to do with religion.
In short, you haven't mastered basic arithmetic-- that whole (one vs.
more than one) thing.
Come back when your reading comprehension increases as well.
John W. Kennedy
> In article <4AtHa.18724$gs5.13...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>,
> jwk...@attglobal.net says...
>
>>Gordon wrote:
>>
>>>In article <hnUCa.4664$g62.4...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>,
>>>jwk...@attglobal.net says...
>>>
>>>>average conrad wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I think before you go off on goose-hunts you should consider who C.S.Lewis
>>>>>was: an allegorical Christian writer.
>>
>>>>Oh for God's sake, he wrote precisely one allegory in his entire career!
>>
>>>Yep, uh huh.
>>
>>>The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
>>>as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
>>>Trilogy.
>>
>>In short, you haven't the faintest notion of what "allegory" means,
>>apart from a vague notion that it has something to do with religion.
> In short, you haven't mastered basic arithmetic-- that whole (one vs.
> more than one) thing.
Try actually reading Lewis. "The Pilgrim's Regress" is an allegory.
The Space Trilogy and "Narnia" are not. He complained, by the way,
about people who couldn't see that.
Gordon
> Gordon wrote:
> > In article <4AtHa.18724$gs5.13...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>,
> > jwk...@attglobal.net says...
> >
> >>Gordon wrote:
> >>
> >>>In article <hnUCa.4664$g62.4...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>,
> >>>jwk...@attglobal.net says...
> >>>
> >>>>average conrad wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>I think before you go off on goose-hunts you should consider who C.S.Lewis
> >>>>>was: an allegorical Christian writer.
> >>
> >>>>Oh for God's sake, he wrote precisely one allegory in his entire career!
> >>
> >>>Yep, uh huh.
> >>
> >>>The Great Divorce was the same as The Chronicles of Narnia was the same
> >>>as The Pilgrim's Regress. Those were of course also the same as the Space
> >>>Trilogy.
> >>
> >>In short, you haven't the faintest notion of what "allegory" means,
> >>apart from a vague notion that it has something to do with religion.
>
> > In short, you haven't mastered basic arithmetic-- that whole (one vs.
> > more than one) thing.
>
> Try actually reading Lewis. "The Pilgrim's Regress" is an allegory.
> The Space Trilogy and "Narnia" are not. He complained, by the way,
> about people who couldn't see that.
Try keeping up. "The Great Divorce" is.
...and both Space and Narnia remain quite allegorical.
