C.S. Lewis on Pride
rachel lindstrom (baubo@primenet.com)
Sun, 16 Jun 1996 11:00:46 -0700
"It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices can smuggle
itself into the very centre of our religious life. But you can see
why. The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on
us through our animal nature. But this does not come through our
animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely
spiritual: consequently, it is far more subtle and deadly. For the
same reason, Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler
vices. Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy's Pride, or, as
they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a
man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to
think that they are beneath his dignity -- that is, by Pride. The
devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste
and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up
in you the Dictatorship of Pride -- just as he would be quite content
to see your chilblains cured it he was allowed, in return, to give
you cancer. For Prie is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very
possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense. "
C.S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven, ed. Hooper, Harcourt Brace & Co.,
1989, p 92.