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2 years ago
LIFE and FOCUS: First and Second Things… a universal law? Thoughts from Clives Staples.
““The longer I looked into it the more I came to suspect that I was perceiving a universal law…
The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping….
Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand rediscovery. It (the law) may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made…
Apparently the world is made that way. If Esau really got the pottage in return for his birthright, then Esau was a lucky exception. You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first…
From which it would follow that the question, What things are first? is of concern not only to philosophers, but to everyone…What is the first thing? The only reply I can offer here is that if we do not know, then the first and only truly practical thing is to set about finding out.”
C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things”, (from GOD IN THE DOCK)
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