However, Haldane did miss the import of what Lewis was about. Haldane would go on to shred Lewis’ understanding of science. It sounds like an impressive response to pretty humble books, but it is also a backhanded compliment. Hillegas, ed., Shadows of Imagination, 16 ). Lewis a higher compliment than to compare him with Dante and Milton…” (Mark R. “The tale is told with very great skill, and the descriptions of celestial landscapes and of human and nonhuman behaviour are often brilliant. Haldane says of Lewis’ science fiction books, the Ransom Cycle: In “Auld Hornie, FRS”–a witty, sarcastic reference to the devil in a Screwtapian mode–J.B.S. It is this latter move–Haldane’s praise of Lewis–that provides a bit of fun. Lewis was clearly a lover of this scientistic Triumberate, and Haldane speaks highly of Lewis’ skill. This was something they recognized in each other. But their stories have remained, and where they were good stories as stories, they are still read by lovers of literature and fans of early science fiction. Embedded in the Ransom Cycle is a war of worldviews, a narrative that puts pressure against the philosophical fiction of Wells-Stapledon-Haldane.Īs it turns out, neither Lewis’ idea of humans made in the image of God nor scientism’s philosophy of humanity as the ultimate of evolution prevailed. Wells and Olaf Stapledon, were in Lewis’ mind an oligarchy that tyrannized social thought, transforming the science of Darwinism into a cosmic myth with frightening moral consequences. “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” (now in Of Other Worlds 77). While Lewis relished in the model–science fiction as a platform for thinking about God, humanity, and the nature of the universe–he disagreed with Haldane’s “scientism.” In unpublished notes, Lewis wrote that scientism is: Lewis a model for writing theological fiction. A polymath, writer, and public intellectual, his Possible Worlds helped give C.S. Haldane was one of the last renaissance men.

The ransom trilogy