C. S. Lewis’ Critique of Eugenics

Introduction: Why It Matters

Apart from his apologetic and philosophical works, C. S. Lewis is often underutilized as a source regarding topics that he would likely have considered extremely important. Among these areas is his perspective on eugenics. While many address his concerns regarding science generally, his thoughts on the specific ideology of eugenics are rarely dealt with. Considering how little research is put into this subject, one might ask why it is worth studying. Historian Joseph Loconte responds by making the important point that Lewis was one of the few Christian academics willing to resist this movement. In 1912, “The Anglican bishops of Birmingham, Oxford, and Ripon were among the vice presidents of the First International Eugenics Congress” (Loconte 2015). This movement did not simply push past the church—the two embraced each other.

Eugenics easily fooled Christians, despite its clear atheistic goals, making Lewis’ refutation of it essential to grasp.

In addition, the West as a whole looks to science as the answer to ills of all nature. Dr. Stephen Selden, while considering the history of eugenics in America, wrote, “The media often report, ‘It’s all in our genes.’ For example, popular magazines offer the theory that revenge may be coded in one’s DNA, newspapers carry articles trumpeting the discovery of a gay gene, and auto dealers explain that all vehicles in their product line draw from a common and superior gene pool” (Selden 2005, 200). The point Selden made is that humans look to science—particularly biology—for answers, and this state of mind is particularly susceptible to the appeal of eugenics.

Finally, the West still faces the same ethical questions posed in Lewis’ day. Stephen Phillips, comparing eugenics to the recent advances in gene-editing technology, writes, “Just as an evolutionary understanding of human beings and human morality leads to a rejection of objective values, the power to determine the characteristics of future human beings will do the same” (Phillips 2012). His conclusion? The wisdom of Lewis has never been more important to grasp, for he saw that the true evil of eugenics lay in the way it taught man that humans could surpass their nature by destroying the philosophical, ethical, and religious principles of Christianity.

Understanding Eugenics

The wisdom of Lewis has never been more important to grasp, for he saw that the true evil of eugenics lay in the way it taught man that humans could surpass their nature by destroying the philosophical, ethical, and religious principles of Christianity.

Before considering the specific arguments presented by Lewis, it will be useful to first analyze the nature and rise of eugenics as a philosophy during his life. In his literature, Lewis spoke principally about the concept of scientism, of which eugenics is a specific outworking. In his book Of Other Worlds, he describes scientism as, “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—of pity, of happiness, and of freedom” (Lewis 1966).1 In other words, scientism is the desire to propagate humanity in the natural world solely for the sake of propagating humanity.2 Other ethics are not even considered. Of course, there is nothing wrong with survival, but the extent to which men are willing to go, placing science above all else, led Lewis to recognize a more sinister menace: eugenics.

Hinted at in his definition of scientism, eugenics does not simply involve survival but the twisting of humanity into a “superior” race, making it an appealing option for adherents of scientism. To use Lewis’ words, eugenics offers humanity the “power to make its descendants what it pleases” through scientific knowledge (Lewis 1947, 484). In a sense, eugenics is the application of evolutionary theory to sociology, for it involves the conditioned breeding of humans—there is no better word to use—to rapidly improve humanity through evolutionary processes. Whether this enforcement of human evolution is scientific or not is beside the point, for humans have taken the eugenics process seriously and applied it vigorously.

The automatic desire might be to jump straight to Hitler as an example, but a wider approach is worth consideration, for the Western world as a whole was touched by the philosophy of eugenics. To understand the origins of eugenics in the modern era, it is useful to begin with the cousin of Charles Darwin: Sir Francis Galton. This man coined the term eugenics and advocated “that the government should encourage breeding among the best people and take steps to keep the superior stocks from mixing with inferiors” (Jackson and Weidman 2005, 68). While Galton was certainly inaccurate in his understanding of how much one could propagate certain traits, he latched on to the idea of evolutionary history as the background and motive for eugenics (Yudell and Venter 2014, 21). John Jackson and Nadine Weidman, writing for the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, put it this way: “Galton believed that the inferior races were losing the evolutionary battle for existence in the face of their superior European conquerors. Galton also argued for a social program that would prevent the same fate for England” (Jackson and Weidman 2005, 68).

This brings one to Lewis’ day. Joseph Loconte sets the stage by describing it as an era of peace and—more importantly—progress: “The triumph of science and technology seemed to leave no room for religion or the supernatural. Science, not religion, was driving human achievement” (Loconte 2015, 14). In other words, there was an optimistic view that, by science, man could rid himself of violence, crime, and even sin. How this would play out can be seen in the words of a once well-known biology textbook, A Civic Biology Presented in Problems: “If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection” (Hunter 1914, 261). How can one do this? The textbook goes on to say, “If such people [the unfit, criminal, or poor] were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums . . . preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race” (263). This was no radical piece of pro-Nazi propaganda but an American biology textbook, a reflection of the philosophical goals the West had embraced.

A clear example of how this mindset played out in America can be seen in the Supreme Court’s 1927 decision on Buck v. Bell. When Virginia passed laws allowing for the mandatory sterilization of inmates of state institutions believed to have hereditary mental defects, a court case quickly followed. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Virginia’s laws. In the justification of this eight-to-one decision, these words jump out as especially interesting: “We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices . . . in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence” (Holmes 1927). Notice the way this argument functions. If the state can demand a person die for public interest, a lesser sacrifice such as sterilization is no major issue—especially when the individual in question is one who could swamp the state with incompetent children. Simply put, eugenics in America during the early 1900s placed the general welfare above all else, connecting its philosophical goals with a sociological ethic.

Of course, no analysis of eugenics could ever be complete without some consideration of Hitler’s influence, which brings one to eugenics in Germany. Historian Richard Weikart writes, “Nazi barbarism was motivated by an ethic that prided itself on being scientific. . . . Whatever promoted the evolutionary progress of humanity was deemed good, and whatever hindered biological improvement was considered morally bad” (Weikart 2004). Because of this, eugenics in Germany led to “one of the most evil programs the world has ever witnessed under the delusion that Darwinism could help us discover how to make the world better” (Weikart). Here one sees the true nature of eugenics. It is not so much the casting off of all values as it is the adoption of a different set of values, values seen as objective and untainted by antiquated ideas about morality. Indeed, there was something almost religious about the way the Nazi regime completely restructured reality to fit into their eugenics program. For Hitler and the West as a whole, eugenics was the way forward because it supported the improvement of man as a species, perhaps even an evolution into something new and better.

Philosophical Opposition

This brings one to Lewis’ personal arguments against the science of eugenics, some of his more well-known objections being philosophical in nature. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis wrote, “Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won. We shall have ‘taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho’ and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?” (Lewis 1947, 484). Through eugenics, Lewis argued that humanity would not simply forget but erase the definition of what it meant to be human,3 and this, he thought, was a self-destructive process. “There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. . . . In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car” (484). To simplify, for every gain in power, humans will lose freedom. Eugenics, by giving humans greater power over themselves, makes man a slave of man, gradually removing the “pity, happiness, and freedom” of humans by turning them into potentially fitter but quite mechanical creatures (Lewis 1966).

More than destroying human nature, Lewis recognized that the philosophy of eugenics replaced the former Christian understanding of human purpose and meaning. When asked why he wrote the Space Trilogy, Lewis responded that it was “the realization that thousands of people, in one form or another, depend on some hope of perpetuating and improving the human species for the whole meaning of the universe—that a ‘scientific’ hope of defeating death is a real rival to Christianity” (Lewis 2004, 262). To put it simply, Lewis saw the philosophy of eugenics replacing human meaning and purpose in a quest to bring about some form of paradise, resulting in the destruction of humanity. Michael Aeschliman put it this way: “Science is a good servant but a bad master, a good method for investigating and manipulating the material world, but no method at all for deciding what to do with the knowledge and power acquired thereby” (Aeschliman 1983). Because eugenics chooses what to do with a scientific knowledge of human traits, one must then ask whether it should exist at all. It requires science to be the master of mankind. Philosophically speaking, then, eugenics was, in Lewis’ view, entirely at odds with mankind, removing freedom and replacing purpose.

Of course, Lewis did not merely strike down this faulty philosophy. His overarching philosophical goal was to lead humans toward true purpose, the purpose found in Christ alone: “God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other” (Lewis 1960, 54). In other words, the most fundamental and necessary purpose of humanity is to get closer to God, the source of spiritual life. Eugenics, offering a false version of purpose, was little more than poison to the human spirit, equivalent to spiritual suicide in this respect. Lewis recognized that humans could never find true purpose or fulfillment apart from Christ, only a shallow imitation. Because eugenics, a materialistic philosophy, rejected God, it rejected purpose, turning humans into wandering stars without hope of any solid ground. Thus, Lewis philosophically called one away from eugenics, not through an eloquent apologetic but through showing just how fulfilling Christianity was. In his eyes, one only needed to honestly compare the two in order to see which one made more sense. Christianity fit humans by giving them what they craved, and eugenics destroyed humans by taking away their reason for existence.

Ethical Opposition

Christianity fit humans by giving them what they craved, and eugenics destroyed humans by taking away their reason for existence.

In addition to the philosophical problems of eugenics, Lewis saw ethical issues. Because this branch of science essentially threatens to destroy the definition of humanity, it also turns humans into objects of purely material value. Regarding a separate, though not unconnected, topic of vivisection, Lewis wrote that “the most sinister thing about modern vivisection is this. If a mere sentiment justifies cruelty, why stop at a sentiment for the whole human race? There is also a sentiment for the white man against the black4 . . . for ‘civilized’ or ‘progressive’ peoples against ‘savage’ or ‘backward’ people” (Lysaught 2012, 628). Lewis saw the slippery slope that eugenics created. When humans definitionally became obsolete—or simply divided—Lewis recognized that abuse of any kind could be justified. Incidentally, this is the reason he was so skeptical of Darwinian evolution,5 believing that it created false divisions between humans (Bergman 2023, 59). Ethically, no moral boundaries could exist as long as groups of humans were categorized as “us” and “them.” This applied not merely to vivisection but to any action involving two perceived groups of different humans.

Because of the dangers Lewis saw in relying upon science to determine ethics, it should be no surprise that he also drew a connection between such reliance and oppression. In an essay on the modern state, he described the rise of a “technocracy,” which would involve the use of scientific authority to dictate policy: “I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. . . . It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science” (Lewis 1987, 123). While such a thing might improve life for humans in the short term—as with many tyrants—its end could only be slavery. Historian Edward Larson phrased Lewis’ thoughts in this way: “Lewis perceived science as the ultimate threat to freedom in modern society”6 because scientists had begun to be viewed as the greatest authorities in realms that were not their own, such as government (West 2012). Thus, the removal of freedom in the name of science could be justified. In the realm of eugenics, this meant the removal of inferior humans from the gene tree and the enforced propagation of fit humans. Thus, eugenics affected more than theorized human divisions for Lewis. It threatened the ethics of even political actions. As one who lived through World War II, Lewis better than most understood what that could mean for the human race.

A Christian response, then, must employ Christian ethics in everyday life, showing what the gospel promised. Lewis argued that the morals in the Christian ethic “seem to be concerned with three things. Firstly, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what might be called tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole” (Lewis 1960, 71). As one can see, ethics form into two categories: human relationships and human purpose (loving God), a basic summary of the two great commandments. The latter of these has already been dealt with, but as a contrast to the ethics of eugenics, the first bears special consideration. Firstly, one must seek to love others and to do the right thing with and to them. Because Lewis saw that eugenics could justify any moral atrocity in the name of science, he recognized its complete antithesis to this core feature of Christian morality. Indeed, as long as eugenics divided humans into the “advanced” and “not advanced” categories, harmony of any kind would be impossible. In addition, the betterment of the self morally, an idea often referred to as sanctification by Christians, was also impossible.

When scientists become the greatest authorities in one’s life, they—not God—dictate the values one holds, making betterment of the self a purely materialistic endeavor. The Nazis commanded the hatred of Jews, and Hunter commanded a disgust for the mentally handicapped and poor (Hunter 1914, 263). Thus, Lewis feared that a scientocracy, by snuffing out freedom, would also crush the Christian’s conscience and replace it with the law of science.

Religious Opposition

Ultimately, Lewis saw the evils of eugenics as an offense against God. Curiously enough, the greatest exposition of this can be seen in his fiction, specifically the Space Trilogy. Beginning with Out of the Silent Planet, one sees the villains of the story given a motive that has all the appearance of the science of eugenics. Weston, the first scientist to begin interplanetary travel, argued, “We have learned how to jump off the speck of matter on which our species began; infinity, and therefore perhaps eternity, is being put into the hands of the human race. You cannot be so small-minded as to think that the rights or the life of an individual or of a million individuals are of the slightest importance in comparison to this” (Lewis 1938, 29). In other words, Weston held the same presupposition found in eugenics, the idea that the advancement of the human race supersedes basic morality, and this led him to consider the less intelligent to be less valuable. In this book, however, there was some hope of turning Weston from this path. As the benevolent Oyarsa said to him, “If you were mine, I would try to cure you” (138).

Things became darker throughout the trilogy, to the point that one sees Weston give himself over to the cause of Satan (Lewis 1944, 82–83), but the real climax occurs in That Hideous Strength, where one sees the outcome of a philosophy based upon eugenics. In it, the ironically named N.I.C.E. (National Institute of Coordinated Experiments) began its work of experimentation on humans for the “sterilization of the unfit, liquidation of backwards races (we don’t want any dead weights), selective breeding” (Lewis 1945, 40). Curiously enough, this desire for advancement was paired with a deep interest in what the leaders of the N.I.C.E. referred to as “macrobes,” an advanced species of superior intelligence beings that turned out to be demons. While Lewis did not see eugenicists as being demonically possessed, the macrobes of the N.I.C.E. illustrate how convinced he was that eugenics was directly opposed to God, to the point of becoming a religion of its own. An illustration of this is seen in J. S. Haldane, a proponent of eugenics with whom Lewis clashed several times. This scientist was described by one of his very own supporters as “advancing a new religion” and that “his faith was reason, his church—science” (Adams 2000, 483). To put it simply, eugenics was, in Lewis’ eyes, a materialistic religion that served the cause of Satan.

To put it simply, eugenics was, in Lewis’ eyes, a materialistic religion that served the cause of Satan.

Counteracting this religion of man, Lewis advocated a God-centered way of life. At its root, Lewis saw the essence of Christianity as growing to be more like God. He would later write, while considering the Psalms, that “the most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance” (Lewis 1987, 155). Perhaps one sees the fulfillment of both human purpose and the Christian ethic in this statement. Lewis found great value in learning to love God better, and just as with David, this love could only result in showing others the same love. To contrast eugenics in the most dramatic way possible, Lewis simply described them as opposing religions: Satan worship and God worship. To reflect once more on The Space Trilogy’s final book, one character was made to realize just how much allure the spiritual forces of evil offered to the N.I.C.E.: “They do not need to be born and breed and die. . . . The Masters live on. They retain their intelligence: they can keep it artificially alive. . . . They are almost free of Nature, attached to her only by the thinnest, finest cord” (Lewis 1945, 173). On one hand, there is the joyous, hopeful love that Lewis felt when simply reading about his Lord, a religion that promises everything and takes nothing. On the other is a dark, desperate struggle to surpass the limits of human nature, to reject the image of God itself, with all its hope and goodness (296).

Eugenics Today

Of course, one may well assume humans have surpassed the barbarism of the past, that the West has moved beyond the evil of Hitler—not to mention the mistakes of America—but humanity’s “power to make its descendants what it pleases” still holds great allure in the West (Lewis 1947, 484). The science and methodology have changed, but Lewis’ concerns still bear weight. Two facets of Western science primarily represent the eugenics movement today, and interestingly enough, they fill in both a progressive and reductive aspect of eugenics, propagating “fit” humans and weeding out those who are not wanted: gene editing and abortion. Both controversial in their own way, these practices are nevertheless well supported by scientists as well as laymen, and a healthy caution stemming from Lewis’ beliefs is worth adopting. Of course, many have sought to provide boundaries to gene-editing technology, calling for a balanced and ethical approach (Principles for the Governance 2022). How can a person treat an unborn subject of gene editing with the dignity due a human when the philosophical possibility of changing a person’s essence may be on the table (DiSilvestro 2019, 16)? As with the eugenics of Lewis’ day, there is something almost religious about the way humans rely on scientists to direct their lives in this sphere. Thus, genetic technologies, though not necessarily evil in themselves, carry with them a temptation that Lewis likely would have rejected as another form of eugenics.

Abortion, as a negative counterpart, likewise carries with it a host of concerns identical with Lewis’ arguments against eugenics. Darrin Schultz, writing for the Ave Maria Law Review, asked the poignant question, “Even if the state is not compelling a procedure, does eugenic ideology continue to persist by devaluing certain lives? As discussed, sterilization was the chosen vehicle of that era of eugenics [referencing the time of Buck v. Bell]. Is selective abortion a new vehicle for this era of eugenics?” (Schultz 2022, 309). The answer was given by Mary Meehan. Documenting the historical lines between eugenics and abortion, she pointed out that many influential leaders in the eugenics movement in the middle and late 1900s, such as Frederick Osborne and Garrett Hardin, were also main advocates of abortion as well as birth control as a means of furthering eugenic goals (Meehan 1998). Eventually, this movement to decrease the less fit would shift to the similar goal of decreasing the swelling population, especially of the lower class, and grew in popularity (Meehan 1999).

Those who would once have been seen as needy members of society are now a set of inconveniences, and thus, traditional morality is sacrificed by science on the altar of human comfort.

Of course, the movement for abortion shifted as an openly eugenicist platform grew less and less popular, emphasizing individual rather than societal gain. Necessary to many viewpoints justifying abortion is the argument that a fetus is not human or less human than a mother—and thus less valuable. As such, one sees what may be the fulfillment of Lewis’ concerns about eugenics. Philosophically, if not in reality, the definition of humanity has changed, and in a very immediate sense, humans are able to make future generations “the prisoner who follows the triumphal car” (Lewis 1947, 484). In this way, man is made a slave of abortion. The autonomy of future men and women, not to mention their lives, is irrevocably altered. Because the philosophy regarding the unborn is affected by abortion, ethics change as well. For example, in Iceland, Down syndrome has practically ceased to exist because every single fetus predicted to have Down syndrome has been aborted (Wise 2016, 1). Those who would once have been seen as needy members of society are now a set of inconveniences, and thus, traditional morality is sacrificed by science on the altar of human comfort.

Summary

Ultimately, Lewis saw eugenics as far more than an attack on traditional values. It did more than kill the body—it destroyed the soul. Eugenics was an ideology that replaced Christian philosophy, ethics, and even religion. It twisted humanity into something unrecognizable. The response of every Christian, then, must be to reject eugenics and support the truth of the gospel.

Considering Lewis’ arguments anew has never been more important. Perhaps the United States does not have a burgeoning Nazi regime, but eugenics can thrive in the best of countries.

Eugenics was embraced by many churches of Lewis’ day, and churches today are no less susceptible. Science is still looked to as an authority in nearly all sectors of life. More than this, advances in genomic science and the ongoing abortion debate raise the same concerns levied against eugenics (Phillips 2022).

In short, this era is no different than the time of Lewis. Margo Simpson, writing on him, summed it up perfectly: “Lewis’s anti-scientism is an anti-modernism because the modern age is an age in which scientific thought has been taken to dangerous extremes” (Simpson 1999, 71). That age is not one the West has escaped. The science of eugenics is still pitted against Christianity. Christians must oppose any presence of eugenics today because it holds all the tempting allure of Satan (Genesis 3:5). But like any devilish trick, it can only lead to death.

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