#1: The Law of Human Nature

We had what I thought was an interesting discussion in class last Friday about choices, consequences, law, and society. As a follow-up to that discussion, I wanted to post some of C. S. Lewis' assertions about what he calls the "Law of Nature" or "The Law of Human Nature." I hope you will find them helpful in rounding out and/or adding to our class discussion. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to comment on this site or to bring them with you to class this Friday.

"Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kinds of things they say. 'How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you'—'That's my seat, I was there first'—'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm' ... 'Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine'—'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.

Now what interests me in all these remarks is that the man who is saying them is not merely saying that the other man's behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: 'To hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given a bit of orange, [etc.] ... It looks in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not ... they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a [football player] had committed a [penalty] unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong ... was called that Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here or there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right ...

But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break a promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson ... Have [such individuals] not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

It seems, then, that we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may sometimes be mistaken about them, just as people sometimes [do math] wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste or opinion any more than the multiplication table ...

[We] believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much—we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so—that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we [give ourselves credit for] our good temper." (see Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 3-8)

As I said before, I hope you find this helpful, and I also hope that it enables you to see things as they really are. Best wishes.