Men Without Chests Symbol Analysis

In the first of the three lectures contained in The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis uses the idea of “Men Without Chests” to symbolize human beings who lack what Lewis sees as “right sentiments,” or emotions that properly align with logical reasoning. Lewis argues that “The head rules the belly through the chest”—or, in other words, that human beings are properly governed by “emotions [the belly] organized by trained habit [the head, or reason] into stable sentiments [the chest].” In contrast to past eras, modern education, in Lewis’s view, tends to produce “Men Without Chests”—and then demands from its students moral values and virtues which, lacking well-formed sentiments, students are not equipped to recognize or embody.