read carefully before you leap

Anyone who has lived for any significant amount of time can recall a time when someone they knew—or even their self –forgot to look before they leaped; a notion we often describe as jumping to conclusions, or to use a more legalistic phrase, assuming facts not in evidence. An amusing urban legend describes what can happen when we jump to conclusions:

Fortunately most instances where we jump to conclusions aren’t as physical as this brief tale but the conclusions are often just as misguided and the results just as harmful.

Case in point: In last week’s article I included quotes from C. S. Lewis’ small book The Abolition of Man in which Lewis used contraception (in the broadest sense possible) to describe how science in its zeal to conquer nature could over time so alter (to some improve, others transform or mutate) the human race that what was once known and understood to be ‘man’, what God had formed out of clay and breathed life into his soul, would be abolished, replaced by a ‘new man’, redesigned and reformulated, made by some men over other men to be what they wish them to be.

Now in the entire article ‘contraception’ was mentioned three times, all within the first quote: ““…as regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer.”[1]

Please read the quote completely and carefully and try not to jump to any conclusions. Pay special attention to the highlighted portions of the quote. If possible block from your mind any mention of ‘contraception’. I will wager that when Lewis’ words are read with care they will take on new and important meaning and most assuredly a different conclusion.

Earlier this week I received an email from a reader with a dissenting point of view to which I felt compelled to respond, for it raised issues that I believe needed to reach a broader readership.  I will therefore expand upon last week’s article next week.

If interested, my response is available here.

[1]   C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 1943.