“The Magician’s Bargain”
Lewis writes warns against the potential danger of man sacrificing everything to Nature (with the capital N) in return for increasing dominance. To this transaction he gives one of the work’s most recognized metaphors:
“It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return.”
Allusive Metaphor
At the center of the text’s argument is the question of whether man is mere natural being like all other creatures or has the species been blessed with superiority through the endowment of rationality. Lewis turns to Shakespeare for a simile to which this tug-of-war can be compared:
“We have been trying, like Lear, to have it both ways: to lay down our human prerogative and yet at the same time to retain it.”
The Irish Magician?
The bargain of the magician is not the only inventive metaphor used to illustrate the sacrificial paradox of surrendering rationality to pure nature. In describing the logic at work here of giving nature meaning through reason only to insist that the holder of reason is a pure act of Nature, Lewis draws upon an apparently well-known (and possibly offensive) comically illustrative comparison:
“It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him to warm his house with no fuel at all.”
Teamwork: Emotion and Logic
The tug-of-war between emotional investment and logical application is framed in another of the more famous lines from the text. The assertion here is that rationality trumps nature, but only when they continue to work in concert:
“The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.”
Teaching
Another powerful metaphorical image taken from this text has been adopted and utilized by members of the educational system from institutional literature to personal essays in the college application process. And why not? It’s one of the best yet devised. Now if only the fundamental thesis it proposes would be instituted:
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.”
Metaphor
The word “man” has two meanings: it means both the species and the individual human being. It is like the word “sheep,” which means both a number of sheep and one sheep. The author uses this metaphor to show that there can be more than one meaning for a word. In this case, the concept is about how the word “man” has two different meanings. If matter is all that exists, then man is merely a machine and morality is a mere prejudice. The author uses this metaphor to show how something can have different meanings and implications depending on context or situation. In this case, he uses the metaphor to explain what it means if humans only exist as matter (a machine).
Simile
An example of a simile from this book would be when Lewis compares men to "the men grown cold: whom the glory will not kindle." In this case, men have turned away from God, and God's glory does not light them up or give them warmth because they do not believe in Him.
"Like a Clever Man’s Trick"
Lewis highlights the fallacious character of the subjective approach to moral instruction by likening it to "a clever man's trick." The subjective approach to morality may seem tempting at first, but in the end it falls short of offering a strong ethical foundation, just as a trick may seem great at first, but lack substance.
