The Law of Human Nature

For Christmas, Mike B., AKA Mama Bonnonnono, gave me The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. I love reading, and this book has seven books in it for under $20. I am more of a completist, and having those seven books separate is generally more of my style, but for that price I couldn't argue.

This morning I started the first of the books, 'Mere Christianity.' I was only a few pages into the first chapter 'The Law of Human Nature', and this quote really knocked me over:

For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

Think of how true that is. I make conditional admittances like that all of the time. I'll admit to being mean, if I had some reason for it. When I hurt someone, it wasn't because I was being irresponsible with my words, but because I was tired, or stressed, or.. whatever else I can muster at the moment. And it's true, that I am more likely to say or do something irresponsible when I am not in the right frame of mind. But instead of taking responsibility for those things, and admitting that I was completely wrong, I want to place some of the blame on those other conditions.

So not only are we human in that we do wrong, but when we do wrong things, we want to blame something else. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Kind of like when our two naked ancestors were standing in a Garden, and God wanted to know what was going on.

And not only that, but then when we do good things, we want some kind of credit for it.

The quote is really so short, and some might even say it's simple and obvious, but look at how much I could dig out of it. This book is already making me very excited.