he theme that the base, animal values of greed and underhandedness do not pay off in the long run, because the human spirit of goodness will always triumph in what is essentially a good world. C.S. Lewis uses the fact that human beings are often said to resemble, or are descended from apes, to stress his Christian perspective that all persons and animals must strive to fulfill their higher nature. The author does not believe that the intellect, persuasion and scientific rationality can explain everything. Shift demonstrates how supposedly intelligent creatures that seem to know what to do are really only satisfying self-serving motives and know nothing. Shift even claims to be an old, wise, and shrunken man, rather than an ape. He uses deceit and lies to cause other characters to believe that their true, wiser instincts are wrong. Puzzle is really morally wiser than Shift, because he is filled with goodness and knowledge of what the Christ-like Aslan really wants, but at the beginning of the novel, Puzzle does not understand this t
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