J.B.S. Haldane, C.E.M. Joad, and Warren Lewis

Surprised by Joy, Chapter XII: the war, Paddy Moore, Johnson, Chesterton, and others

Joel D. Heck

(1892-1964)

CSL: The Newsletter of the New York C. S. Lewis Society

Nov/Dec 2007, Vol. 38, No. 6

The Ransom Trilogy: “the desperately immoral outlook wh. I try to pillory in Weston.”

Mathematics and biology War service: January 1915 to January 1919 Physiology, New College, Oxford (1919-

1923) Biochemistry, Trinity College, Cambridge

(1923-1932) Haldane’s Law (mathematical

understanding of passing on genetic characteristics)

Professor of Genetics, University College, London (1933-39)

Sir Peter Medawar: “the cleverest man I ever knew”

Showmanship Sometimes

rudeness and a hot temper

Humor, wit, and originality

Daedalus, or Science and the Future (“a diabolical little book”)

Possible Worlds (which Lewis read)

Callinicus: A Defense of Chemical Warfare

The Causes of Evolution Biology in Everyday Life The Inequality of Man The Man with Two

Memories Hundreds of articles

Born on Nov. 5, 1892 Charlotte Franken, reporter for the Daily

Express They married in 1925 Marxist, 1937 Science correspondent for the Daily

Worker, the official publication of the Communist Party in England, 1937 (nearly 350 articles)

Communist Party, 1942, and therefore an atheist

Charlotte defected to the Soviet Union, she divorced Haldane in 1945

Married to Helen Spurway, ca. 1945

Support for Ukrainian scientist Lysenko Widely known for speaking, research,

and writing Fellow of the Royal Society (1932) Darwin Medal from the Royal Society

(1952) Huxley Memorial Medal (1956) Feltrinelli Prize Honorary Doctorate of Science Kimber Award Other recognition

Left with Helen on July 24, 1957

Attracted by the Hindu non-violent philosophy of life

Claimed to be emigrating due to Anglo-French aggression in Suez

Concerned about anti-socialistic tendencies in Europe

The Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta

Genetics and Biometry Laboratory in Bhubaneswar

Haldane: “the silence of interstellar space”

Lewis: the music of the spheres Haldane: argued against the uniqueness

of mankind in the vastness and great age of the universe

Lewis: the Incarnation is true Haldane: “It is on the whole undesirable

that they should beget their like.” Lewis: pilloried eugenics in THS

CSL letter to Roger Green (Dec. 1938): Stapledon and Haldane on space travel spurred him to write Out of the Silent Planet

CSL on Haldane’s nonsense: “Most of the other nonsense derives from the last essay in J.B.S. Haldane’s Possible Worlds.”

Haldane = scientism, “the belief that the supreme moral end is the perpetuation of our own species, and that this is to be pursued even if, in the process of being fitted for survival, our species has to be stripped of all those things for which we value it”

“Auld Hornie, F.R.S.” (Autumn 1946, The Modern Quarterly)

Auld Hornie = the pet name for the devil given by the Scots

F.R.S. = Fellow of the Royal Society Main Points: (1) Lewis’s science was

wrong, (2) Lewis cast scientists in an unfavorable light, (3) Lewis considered scientific planning to be a road to hell

“A Reply to Professor Haldane” Never published in Lewis’s lifetime (1) Lewis didn’t intend his science to be

totally accurate, since he was writing a romance.

(2) Lewis was attacking scientism, not scientists; “I deny the charge.” cf. Hingest

(3) Lewis saw an invitation to hell likely to be dressed up as scientific planning.

Published the same year as Perelandra and just two years before That Hideous Strength (1945)

The Abolition of Man is the book that Haldane should have tackled.

Lewis: “As a philosophical critic the Professor would have been formidable and therefore useful. As a literary critic . . . he keeps on missing the point.”

Michaelmas Term, Nov. 15, 1948

Topic: “Atheism” Counterpoint by

Ian M. Crombie

Haldane: opposed to vivisection Haldane: “If my mental processes are

determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”

Haldane: degeneration, not progress, is the rule in evolution

(1891-1953)

Sehnsucht, Fall 2009

Born on August 12, 1891.Educated at Balliol College, Oxford

University.Died on April 9, 1953 in London at

the age of 61.A person whose life intersected with

that of C. S. Lewis.Raised in a Christian home.

Matriculated in 1910 Studied philosophy

and graduated with First Class Honors in Literae Humaniores

The top of his class Discarded his belief

in Christianity during these years.

Became a socialist.

Spoke on the BBC radio in a program called … … The Brains Trust (same decade as Lewis) Popular philosophy through his many books,

more than 75 (good writer) The academic follower of G. B. Shaw on

creative evolution (purpose without personal deity)

Head of the Philosophy Department at Birkbeck College, University of London, 1930

The main speaker in the most famous debate in the history of the Oxford Union Society (Feb. 9, 1933): “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”

Meeting of the Federal Union, 1940

Attracted to the socialism of H. G. Wells and especially George Bernard Shaw

Joined the Fabian Society Became a rationalist and left the Bible

behind Once described Christianity as a dying

religion. Organized Christianity, he wrote, “will disappear within the next hundred years.”

The world needs reason, not redemption. Became a pacifist…Oxford Union, 1933

The Book of Joad, 1932

The Testament of Joad, 1937

Six chapters on “Dislikings”

Chapter XI: “Morals and My Lack of Them”

Cars and all other products of the Industrial Revolution

The family Difficult divorce laws

“I have liked women too much to pay them the poor compliment of cold shouldering all for the sake of one.”

Music Nature Long walks Dining Discussions Smoking

Lecturing Public speaking Tennis Chess Bridge Paris Picking flowers in

spring and mushrooms in autumn

Horseback riding

“Whenever I can, I trespass.” “I have liked women too much …” Married and divorced Student teacher mistress Many others All of them introduced as “Mrs. Joad” Expelled from the Fabian Society for

sexual misbehavior Leonard Woolf described him as a

“high-minded, loose-living, loose-thinking … a selfish, quick-witted, amusing intellectual scallywag.”

“no fundamental and incurable wickedness in human beings”

World War Two George Bernard Shaw’s expression of

human evil seemed “intolerably shallow”

God and Evil (1942), favored theism “I would like to cultivate virtue and to

be a better man, but I simply do not know how to do it.”

Somewhat unclear Exchange of articles with C. S. Lewis in early

1941 in The Spectator, “Evil and God” Saw evil in WW2 and in himself Wrote favorably of The Screwtape Letters on

May 16, 1942 (and had probably read The Problem of Pain earlier): Lewis “make[s] righteousness readable.”

Debated Lewis at the Oxford Socratic Club on Jan. 24, 1944, attended by 250 (largest ever)

Expelled from a BBC radio panel in 1948: “I cheat the railway company whenever I can.”

The Recovery of Belief (1951) (he died in 1953)

Partial credit given to C. S. Lewis’s book, The Abolition of Man

Began attending his local church “Christianity, moreover, tells me that He

will not only assist me personally by the bestowal of grace, but that He has assisted mankind as a whole by sending His Son into the world to win for men by His suffering and death the chance of eternal life and to provide them with an example of right living, by following which they may come to deserve it.”

He couldn’t explain the history of Christianity without the supernatural, including the changed lives of the disciples.

Ultimately, the central teachings of Christianity were at the core—the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Philosopher and ScallywagThere is room in the kingdom for

scallywags!And maybe even philosophers!

(1895-1973)

The Chronicle (Publication of the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society)Volume 6, Issue 3, October 2009

Born June 16, 1895 Homeschooling by

Flora Reading, Latin,

French, and math Writing stories

about Animal-Land (Jack) and India (Warren)

Boxen1898: Age 3

The death of his mother in 1908

4 years at Malvern College beginning in September 1909

First diary entry was on March 13, 1912

Extensive diaries from 1919 to 1972

1908: Age 13

Tutored by Kirkpatrick for 4 months in autumn, 1913

Entrance exam, Nov. Earned a scholarship

(21st out of 201) The premier school of

military education in Britain

Feb. 4 to Oct. 1, 1914

RMC, Sandhurst, 1915

When I went to Bookham I had what would now be called “an inferiority complex,” partly the result of Wynyard, partly of my own idleness, and partly of the laissez faire methods of Malvern. A few weeks of Kirk’s generous but sparing praise of my efforts, and of his pungent criticisms of the Malvern masters restored my long lost self-confidence: I saw that whilst I was not brilliant or even clever, I had in the past been unsuccessful because I was lazy, and not lazy because I was unsuccessful.

RMC, Sandhurst, 1915

War began on Aug. 4. Commissioned as a 2nd

Lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps on Sept. 29, 1914

Sent to France on Nov. 4

4th Company, 7th Divisional Train British Expeditionary Force

Supply and Transport1919: Age 24

Visited Jack in Etaples, France, when Jack was wounded

The warn ended on Nov. 10, 1918

Service in Belgium, Aldershot (near Oxford), Sierra Leone, Colchester, Woolwich, Shanghai, Bulford, and Shanghai

Retired on Dec. 21, 1932

Shanghai, 1929: Age 34

Ceased practicing Christianity in his youth

While in Sierra Leone he planned to read the entire Bible

A concept of “Joy” On Christmas Day

1931 he took Communion in Shanghai

Jack came to faith on Sept. 28, 1931. Holy Trinity, Headington

Quarry

Jan. 1-4, 1931, 54-mile tour of the Wye Valley (right)

January 1933: Wye Valley January 1934: Wye Valley January 1935: Chiltern

Hills January 1936: Derbyshire January 1937: Dulverton,

Somerset January 1938: Wiltshire January 1939: Wales

The promise between Jack and Paddy

Warren in 1933: “I can say with no reservations whatsoever, that the past twelve months has [sic] been incomparably the happiest of my life.”

Her health declined She called on Jack

frequently for household chores

Died Jan. 12, 1951 Warren: “And so

ends the mysterious self imposed slavery in which J has lived for at least thirty years.”

His 53 years of diaries

The Lewis Papers (unpublished)

Warren once estimated that he typed 12,000 letters for his brother.

Well read An Inkling

ca. 1945: Age 50

The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV (1953)

Six more books on French history, the last of them published in 1963

Letters of C. S. Lewis (1966)

A gentleman APB and SPB: Arch- and

Smallpigiebotham The Four Loves: philia Mrs. Moore to Maureen:

“What is he so politely and cleverly saying now?”John Wain: “the most courteous I have ever met.”

Jack: “…he is in so many ways better than I am. I keep on crawling up to the heights & slipping back to the depths: he seems to do neither.” (1931)

ca. 1952: Age 57

“Oddly enough as time goes on the vision of J as he was in his later years grows fainter, that of him in earlier days more and more vivid. It is the J of the attic and the little end room, the J of Daudelspiels and walks and jaunts, the J of the early and middle years whom I miss so cruelly.”

Died April 9, 1973 Willed The Lewis Papers

to the Wade Center, Wheaton, Illinois

Photo by Clyde Kilby, 1969: Age

74