3
" What I think is true is that at a certain stage in his life he deliberately ceased to take any interest in himself except as a kind of spiritual alumnus taking his moral finals...Self-knowledge for him had come to mean recognition of his own weakness and shortcomings and nothing more. Anything beyond that he sharply suspected, both in himself and in others, as a symptom of spiritual megalomania. At best, there was so much else, in letters and in life, that he found much more interesting! As far as I am able to judge, it was this that lay behind that distinctive combination of an almost supreme intellectual and 'phantastic' maturity, laced with moral energy, on the one hand, with...a certain psychic or spiritual immaturity on the other "
― , Light on C. S. Lewis
5
" Christian theism, to those who believe it, commends itself as fact, not theory, by the sheer multiplicity of its bearings. Were it a speculation, it would surely face a single field of enquiry: it would assign the cause of the world, or the principle of duty, or the aim of existence, or the means of spiritual regeneration. If an equal light falls from a single source in all these directions at once, that source must seem to have the richness of a reality, rather than the abstract poverty of an idea. "
― , Light on C. S. Lewis
11
" he gave an account of the Spenserian world that championed its ethical attitudes as well as their fairy-tale terms, with a rich joy in the defeat of dragons, giants, sorcerers, and sorceresses by the forces of virtue; it was a world he could inhabit and believe in as one inhabits and believes a dream of one's own; its knights, dwarfs, and ladies were real to him...he rejoiced as much in the ugliness of the giants and in the beauty of the ladies as in their spiritual significances, but most of all in the ambience of the faerie forest and plain that, he said, were carpeted with a grass greener than the common stuff of ordinary glades; this was the reality of grass, only to be apprehended in poetry: the world of the imagination was nearer to the truth than the world of the senses, notwithstanding its palpable fictions, and Spenser transcended sensuality by making use of it "
― , Light on C. S. Lewis
15
" On one occasion he was dining with me in Exeter college, placed on the right of the Rector. Rector Marett was a man of abundant geniality and intelligence...Presently he turned to Lewis and said:
'I saw in the papers this morning that there is some scientist-fellah in Vienna, called Voronoff - some name like that - who has invented a way of splicing the glands of young apes onto old gentlemen, thereby renewing their generative powers! Remarkable, isn't it?'
Lewis thought.
'I would say "unnatural".'
'Come, come! "Unnatural"! What do you mean, "unnatural"? Voronoff is a part of Nature isn't he? What happens in Nature must surely be natural? Speaking as a philosopher, don't you know...I can attach no meaning to your objection; I don't understand you!'
'I am sorry, Rector; but I think any philosopher from Aristotle to - say - Jerremy Bentham, would have understood me.'
'Oh, well, we've got beyond Bentham by now, I hope. If Aristotle or he had known about Voronoff, they might have changed their ideas. Think of the possibilities he opens up! You'll be an old man yourself, one day.'
'I would rather be an old man than a young monkey.'
We all laughed at this pay-off line, but behind the wit and the thinking-power lay the puritan strength; because he could also laugh, it seemed warm and humane; but it was unbending. "
― , Light on C. S. Lewis