First edition. Original publisher's grey-green wrappers printed in black. A near fine copy with a little wear to the spine ends, but an exceptionally bright and well preserved copy.

Originally delivered as three evening lectures at King's College, Newcastle as part of Durham University's Riddell Memorial lectures. What resulted was a remarkable work of moral philosophy, notable for its clarity of thought and its prescience. Lewis takes a passage from a recently published grammar text book and argues that what the authors are suggesting, taken to its logical extremes would challenge democracy in human society. He claims in considered written criticism, students are taught to interpret statements of value as always subjective views of the writer, when in fact they could be considered objective statements about an object. By extension, human actions could be considered objectively good or evil and that there is a set of objective values that have been shared, with minor differences, by every culture "the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew...", which Lewis calls the Tao. In the final part Lewis explores the ultimate consequences of collective lack of objective judgement, painting a dystopian picture of a society whose values are dictated by an oligarchy whose lack of rational reflection rules their judgements and makes them impervious to outside influences. In surrendering all objective moral judgement, the rulers become robotic and barely human at all and the abolition of man is complete.
The text remains is as relevant today as it was in the shadow of the Second World War, and is frequently cited as one of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century. "it is generally seen as his most important pamphlet and the best existing defence of objective values and the natural law" - Sayer (Jack - C.S.Lewis and His Times). It was listed as the seventh in Random House's "100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century" in the National Review of 1999.
Bibliographically, the first printing is found in differing wrappers: grey-green bearing the Durham University crest, as here, and a plainer orange-brown. The presence of the university crest and the date on the front wrapper, suggest that this may be a primary issue printed for the sale at the lecture and the orange wrappered issue for general distribution, later that year or early 1944. It is significantly rarer than the orange issue (itself not common). It was published in America in 1947.

Stock ID: 36133