“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.
It is impossible, in this context, not to inquire what our own civilization has been putting first for the last thirty years. And the answer is plain.
It has been putting itself first.”
–C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” God in the Dock: Essays on God and Ethics, Ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harper, 1970), 280-281.
