Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963. Walter Hooper
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СКАЧАТЬ target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_d4ec7a41-c703-5334-a846-7c25d6bfb09c">65 If (as I hope) the new earth contains beasts they will not be a mere continuation of (the present) biological life but a resurrection, a participation (to their appropriate degree) in Zoe.66 See my remarks on this in Problem of Pain.67 Nature will rise again now fully digested & assimilated by Spirit.

      With all good wishes.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO MRS FRANK L. JONES (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 6/4/50

      Dear Mrs. Jones

      No, I don’t agree that loyalty to an institution is simply loyalty to the personnel and their policy. If I join a ship because I like the captain I am not justified in deserting the moment he dies, nor because I dislike his successor. There might come a point (e.g. if the new captain were using the ship for piracy) at which it wd. be my right, and my duty, to leave: not because I simply disliked him and his polity, but because the particular duty (keep your contracts) wd. now conflict with, and yield to, the higher and more universal duty (Don’t be a pirate).

      I don’t see how there could be institutions at all if loyalty was abrogated the moment you didn’t like the personnel. Of course in the case of temporary and voluntary institutions (say, this College) there is no very acute problem. One is entitled to resign, and resignation of course ends all the duties (and all the privileges) I had as a fellow of it.

      It is much more difficult with an institution like a nation. I am sure you don’t in fact regard all your duties to the U.S.A. as null and void the moment a party or a President you don’t like is in power. At what point the policy of one’s own country becomes so manifestly wicked that all one’s duties to it cease, I don’t know. But surely mere disapproval is not enough? One must be able to say, ‘What the State now demands of me is contrary to my plain moral duty.’

      Do you know I doubt if your dog has the consciousness of ‘I’ (by that of course I meant, not saying the words—otherwise some parrots wd. have souls!). Even young children don’t seem to have it, and speak of themselves as he. Not that they haven’t souls, but their souls are not fully on the spot yet. Your dog may have a rudimentary soul for all I know—I said what I could about this in the chap, on Animal Pain in the Problem of Pain. And if you call learning by experience ‘reasoning’ then he does reason. But I doubt if he is aware of himself as something distinct from all other things. My dog if shut in a room and calling for his walk never dreams of barking to tell me where he is: which looks v. much as if all his tail wagging etc, however much it may be a language to me, is not language to him and he has no idea of using it as a sign. It is spontaneous, unreflective expression of emotion. His bark tells me he is excited, but he doesn’t bark in order to tell me: just as my sneeze may tell you I have a cold, but I didn’t sneeze in order to tell you.

      Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again. I don’t think we have ever spoiled anything thru’ not opening a parcel promptly! With our good wishes.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

      Easter Eve [9 April] 1950

      My dear Dom Bede

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO RHONA BODLE (BOD):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 11/4/50

      Dear Miss Bodle

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