COMMON SENSE

COMMON SENSETop

[Dr. Carpenter was one of the leading men of science in the generation which has recently passed away. He was a physician and psychologist of mark, and withal a geographer of erudition and extensive travel. His famous work, “Principles of Mental Physiology,” is published by D. Appleton & Co., New York. Its eleventh chapter, minus a few paragraphs, is here presented.]

There are two principal forms of common sense which it is desirable clearly to distinguish. The first is what the philosopher means by common sense, when he attributes to it the formation of those original convictions or ultimate beliefs, which cannot be resolved into simpler elements, and which are accepted by every normally constituted human being as direct cognitions of his own mental states. It might, indeed, be maintained that this necessary acceptance of propositions which only need to be intelligibly stated to command unhesitating and universal assent, cannot rightly be termed an act of judgment. But just as sense-perceptions, which are intuitive in the lower animals, have been acquired in man by a process of self-education in the earliest stages, in which acts of judgment are continually called for, so may we regard the autocratic deliverances of the universal commonsense of mankind as really having, in the first instance, the characters of true judgments, each expressing the general resultant of uniform experience,—which may be partly of the individual, and partly that of the race embodied in the constitution of each member of it.

The second or popular acceptance of the term common sense, on the other hand, is that of an attribute which judges of things whose self-evidence is not equally apparent to every individual, but presents itself to different individuals in very different degrees, according in part to the original constitution of each, and in part to the range of his experience and degree in which he has profited by it. This is the form of common sense by which we are mainly guided in the ordinary affairs of life: but inasmuch as we no longer find its deliverances in uniform accordance, but encounter continual divergences of judgment as to what things are self-evident,—some being so to A whilst they are not so to B, and others being self-evident to B which are not so to A,—it cannot be trusted as an autocratic or infallible authority. And yet, as Dr. Reid truly says, “disputes very often terminate in an appeal to common sense;” this being especially the case, when to doubt its judgment would be ridiculous.

If the view here taken be correct, these two forms—which may be designated respectively as elementary and as ordinary common sense—have fundamentally the same basis; and we may further connect with them as having a similargenesis, those special forms of common sense, which are the attributes of such as have applied themselves in a scientific spirit to any particular course of inquiry,—things coming to be perfectly self-evident to men of such special culture, which ordinary men, or men whose special culture has lain in a different direction, do not apprehend as such.

The judgment of common sense as to any self-evident truth, may be defined as the immediate or instinctive response that is given (in psychological language) by the automatic action of the mind, or (in physiological language) by the reflex-action of the brain to any question which can be answered by such a direct appeal. The nature and value of that response will depend upon the acquired condition of the mind, or of the brain, at the time it is given; that condition being the general resultant of the whole psychical activity of the individual. The particular form of that activity is determined, as we have seen, in the first place, by his original constitution; secondly, by the influences which have been early brought to bear upon it from without; and thirdly, by his own power of self-direction. And it may be said that while the elementary form of common sense depends mainly upon the first of these factors, its ordinary form chiefly arises out of the first and second, and its special forms almost exclusively out of the third;—the response being given, in each case, by a nervous mechanism, in the organization of which the generalized resultsof the past experiences of consciousness (whether of the race or of the individual) have become embodied.

The parallel between the cerebral action which furnishes the mechanism of thought now under consideration, and the action of the sensori-motor apparatus which furnishes the mechanism of sense and motion, is extremely close. We have seen that there are certain sense-perceptions, which, although not absolutely intuitive, very early come to possess—in every normally constituted human being—the immediateness and perfection of those corresponding perceptions which are intuitive in the lower animals; and that with these are associated certain respondent motions, which, though acquired by practice in the first instance, ultimately come to be performed as by a second nature. Certain of these motions, such as walking erect, are universally acquired; and thus obviously come to be the expressions of the original endowments of the mechanism, trained by an experience very similar in the uniformity of its character to that which educates the elementary form of common sense. For it must be clear to any one who compares the erect progression of a child who has just learned to walk, with that of a dancing dog or even of a chimpanzee, that while experience makes its acquirement possible in each case, only an organism which is at the same time structurally adapted for erect progression and possessed of a special co-ordinating faculty, canturn such experience to full account. The balancing the body in the erect position at starting, the maintenance of that balance by a new adjustment of the centre of gravity as the base of support is shifted from side to side and from behind forwards, and the alternate lifting and advance of the legs, involve the harmonious co-operation of almost all the muscles in the body. Although this co-operation is brought about in the first instance by the purposive direction of our efforts towards a given end, under the guidance of our visual and muscular sensations, yet when we have once learned to walk erect, we find ourselves able to maintain our balance without any exertion of which we are conscious; all that is necessary for the performance of this movement being that a certain stimulus (volitional, or some other) shall call the mechanism into activity.—But further, we have seen that special powers of sense-perception can be acquired by the habitual direction of the attention to particular classes of objects; and that special movements come to be the secondarily automatic expression of them. How nearly related these are to the preceding, we may assure ourselves by attending to the process by which an adult learns to walk on a narrow base, such as a rope or the edge of a plank. For the co-ordinating action has here to be gone through afresh under altered and more special conditions, so as to give a greater development to the balancing power; yet when this has been fully acquired,it is exerted automatically with such an immediateness and perfection, that a Blondin can cross Niagara on his rope with no more danger of falling into the torrent beneath, than any ordinary man would experience if walking without side-rails along the broad platform of the suspension bridge which spans it. Now since in those cases in which man acquires powers that are original or intuitive in the lower animals, there is the strongest reason for believing that a mechanism forms itself in him which is equivalent to that congenitally possessed by them, we seem fully justified in the belief that in those more special forms of activity which are the result of prolonged training, the sensori-motor apparatus grows to the mode in which it is habitually exercised, so as to become fit for the immediate execution of the mandate it receives: it being often found to act not only without intelligent direction, but without any consciousness of exertion, in immediate response to some particular kind of stimulus,—just as an automaton that executes one motion when a certain spring is touched, will execute a very different one when set going in some other way.

There is strong analogical ground, then, for the belief that the higher part of the nervous mechanism which is concerned in psychical action, will follow the same law; embodying the generalized result of its experiences, so as to become able to evolve, by a direct response, a result of which the attainment originally required the interventionof the conscious mind at several intermediate stages of the process. What there is strong ground for believing in regard to the perceptional consciousness, may fairly be extended to the ideational, which is so intimately connected to it, the unconscious co-ordinating action, which in the former case brings the whole experience to bear upon the question, whilst the decisions of the latter are based upon a limited, and therefore one-sided, view of it,—the defect of judgment being due either to an original want of the co-ordinating power, or to disuse of the exercise of it through the limitation of the attention to special fields of study. It may often be noticed that children display a power of bringing common sense to bear upon the ordinary affairs of life, which seems much beyond that of their elders; and yet a very sensible child will often grow into a much less sensible man. Now the reason of this seems to be, that the child perceives the application of self-evident considerations to the case at issue, without being embarrassed by a number of other considerations (perhaps of a trivial or conventional nature) which distract the attention and unduly influence the judgment of the adult. And the deliverances of a child's common sense thus often resemble those of the old court fools, or jesters, whose function seems to have been to speak out home truths which timid courtiers would not venture to utter. Moreover, as has been well remarked, “it is quite possible for minds of limited power tomanage a small range of experience much better than a large, to get confused (as it were) with resources on too great a scale, and therefore to show far more common sense within the comparatively limited field of childish experience, than in the greater world of society or public life. This is probably the explanation of a thing often seen,—how very sagacious people instinctively shrink from a field which their tact tells them is too large for them to manage, and keep to one where they are really supreme.”

Now, in so far as our conscious mental activity is under the direction of our will, we can improve this form of common sense, as to both its range and the trustworthiness of its judgments, by appropriate training. Such training, as regards the purely intellectual aspect of common sense, will consist in the determinate culture of the habit of honestly seeking for truth,—dismissing prejudice, setting aside self-interest, searching out all that can be urged on each side of the question at issue, endeavouring to assign to every fact and argument its real value, and then weighing the two aggregates against each other with judicial impartiality. For in proportion to the steadiness with which this course is volitionally pursued, must be its effectiveness in shaping the mechanism whose automatic action constitutes the unconscious thinking, of which the results express themselves in our common-sense judgments.

The ordinary common sense of mankind, disciplinedand enlarged by an appropriate culture, becomes one of the most valuable instruments of scientific inquiry; affording in many instances the best and sometimes the only basis for a rational conclusion. A typical case, in which no special knowledge is required, is afforded by the flint implements of the Abbeville and Amiens gravel beds. No logical proof can be adduced that the peculiar shapes of these flints were given to them by human hands; but no unprejudiced person who has examined them now doubts it.

The evidence of design to which, after an examination of one or two such specimens, we should only be justified in attaching a probable value, derives an irresistible cogency from accumulation. On the other hand, the improbability that these flints acquired their peculiar shape by accident, becomes to our minds greater and greater as more and more such specimens are found; until at last this hypothesis, although it cannot be directly disproved, is felt to be almost inconceivable, except by minds previously possessed by the dominant idea of the modern origin of man. And thus what was in the first instance a matter of discussion, has now become one of those self-evident propositions, which claim the unhesitating assent of all whose opinion on the subject is entitled to the least weight.

We proceed upwards, however, from such questions as the common sense of mankindgenerally is competent to decide, to those in which special knowledge is required to give value to the judgment; and here we must distinguish between those departments of inquiry in which scientific conclusions are arrived at by a process of strict reasoning, and those in which they partake of the nature of common sense judgments.

Of the former class we have a typical example in mathematics, and in those exact sciences which make use of mathematics as their instrument of proof; but even in these, it is common sense which affords not only the basis, but the materials of the fabric. For while the axioms of geometry are self-evident truths which not only do not require proof, but are not capable of being proved in all their universality, every step of a demonstration is an assertion of which our acceptance depends on our incapability of conceiving either the contrary or anything else than the thing asserted. And thus the certain assurance of the proof felt by every person capable of understanding a mathematical demonstration, depends upon the conclusive self-evidence of each step of it. But we not unfrequently meet with individuals, not deficient in ordinary common sense, who cannot be brought to see this self-evidence; whilst, on the other hand, the advanced mathematician, when adventuring into new paths of inquiry, is able to take a great deal for granted as self-evident, which at an earlier stage of his researches wouldnot have so presented itself to his mind. The deliverances of this acquired intuition can in most cases be readily justified by the reasoning process which they have anticipated. But the genius of a mathematician—that is, his special aptitude developed by special culture—will occasionally enable him to divine a truth, of which, though he may be able to prove it experientially, neither he nor any other can at the time furnish a logical demonstration. In this divining power we have clear evidence of the existence of a capacity which cannot be accounted for by the mere co-ordination of antecedent experiences, whether of the individual or of the race; and yet, as already shown, such co-ordination has furnished the stimulus to its development.

Of those departments of science, on the other hand, in which our conclusions rest (like those of ordinary common sense) not on any one set of experiences, but upon our unconscious co-ordination of the whole aggregate of our experiences,—not on the conclusiveness of any one train of reasoning, but on the convergence of all our lines of thought towards one centre,—geology may be taken as a typical example. For this inquiry brings (as it were) into one focus, the light afforded by a great variety of studies,—physical and chemical, geographical and biological; and throws it on the pages of that great stone book in which the past history of our globe is recorded. And its real progress dates fromthe time when that common sense method of interpretation came to be generally adopted, which consists in seeking the explanation of past changes in the forces at present in operation, instead of invoking (as the older geologists were wont to do) the aid of extraordinary and mysterious agencies.

Of the adequacy of common sense to arrive at a decisive judgment under the guidance of the convergence just indicated, we have a good example in the following occurrence:—A man having had his pocket picked of a purse, and the suspected thief having been taken with a purse upon him, the loser was asked if he could swear to it as his property. This he could not do; but as he was able to name not only the precise sum which the purse contained, but also the pieces of money of which that sum consisted, the jury unhesitatingly assigned to him the ownership of the purse and its contents. A mathematician could have calculated, from the number of coins, what were the chances against the correctness of a mere guess; but no such calculation could have added to the assurance afforded by common sense, that the man who could tell not only the number of coins in the purse, but the value of each one of them, must have been its possessor.

Familiar instances of the like formation of a basis of judgment by the unconscious co-ordination of experiences, will be found in many occurrences of daily life; in which the effect of special training manifests itself in the formation ofdecisions, that are not the less to be trusted because they do not rest on assignable reasons:—Thus, a literary man, who has acquired by culture the art of writing correctly and forcibly, without having ever formally studied either grammar, the logical analysis of sentences, or the artifices of rhetoric, will continually feel in criticizing his own writings or those of others, that there is something faulty in style or construction, and may be able to furnish the required correction, whilst altogether unable to say in what the passage is wrong, or why his amendment sets it right. Or, to pass into an entirely different sphere, a practised detective will often arrive, by a sort of divination, at a conviction of the guilt or innocence of a suspected person, which ultimately turns out to be correct; and yet he could not convey to another any adequate reasons for his assurance, which depends upon the impression made upon his mind by minute details of look, tone, gesture, or manner, which have little or no significance to ordinary observers, but which his specially cultured common sense instinctively apprehends.

But in the ordinary affairs of life, our common sense judgments are so largely influenced by the emotional part of our nature—our individual likes and dislikes, the predominance of our selfish or of our benevolent affections, and so on,—that their value will still more essentially depend upon the earnestness and persistency of ourself-direction towards the right.[4]The more faithfully, strictly, and perseveringly we try to disentangle ourselves from all selfish aims, all conscious prejudices, the more shall we find ourselves progressively emancipated from those unconscious prejudices, which cling around us as results of early misdirection and habits of thought and which (having become embodied in our organization) are more dangerous than those against which we knowingly put ourselves on guard. And so, in proportion to the degree in which we habituate ourselves to try every question by first principles, rather than by the supposed dictates of a temporary expediency, will the mechanism of our unconscious thinking form itself in accordance with those principles, so often as to evolve results which satisfy both ourselves and others with their self-evident truthfulness and rectitude. It has been well remarkedby a man of large experience of human nature and action, that the habitual determination to do the right thing, marvellously clears the judgment as to matters purely intellectual or prudential, having in themselves no moral bearing.

Of this we have a good illustration in the advice which an eminent and experienced judge (the story is told of Lord Mansfield) is said to have given to a younger friend, newly appointed to a colonial judgeship:—“Never give reasons for your decisions; your judgments will very probably be right, but your reasons will almost certainly be wrong.” The meaning of this may be taken to be:—“Your legal instinct, or specially trained common sense, based on your general knowledge of law, guided by your honesty of intention, will very probably lead you to correct conclusions; but your knowledge of the technicalities of law is not sufficient to enable you to give reasons for these conclusions, which shall bear the test of hostile scrutiny.”

But further, in any of those complicated questions that are pretty sure to come before us all at some time or other in our lives,—as to which there is a great deal to be said on both sides; in which it is difficult to say what is prudent and even what is right; in which it is not duty and inclination that are at issue, but one set of duties and inclinations at issue with another,—experience justifies the conclusion to which science seems to point, that the habitually well-regulated mind forms its surest judgment by trusting tothe automatic guidance of its common sense; just as a rider who has lost his road is more likely to find his way home by dropping the reins on his horse's neck, than by continuing to jerk them to this side or that in the vain search for it. For continued argument and discussion, in which the feelings are excited on one side, provoke antagonistic feelings on the other; and no true balance can be struck until all these adventitious influences have ceased to operate. When all the considerations which ought to be taken into the account have been once brought fully before the mind, it is far better to leave them to arrange themselves, by turning the conscious activity of the mind into some other direction, or by giving it a complete repose. If adequate time be given for this unconscious co-ordination, which is especially necessary when the feelings have been strongly and deeply moved, we find, when we bring the question again under consideration, that the direction in which the mind gravitates is a safer guide than any judgment formed when we are fresh from its discussion.

Not only may the range and value of such common sense judgments be increased by appropriate culture in the individual, for, of all parts of our higher nature, the aptitude for forming them is probably that which is most capable of being transmitted hereditarily; so that the descendant of a well-educated ancestry constitutionally possesses in it much highermeasure than the progeny of any savage race. And it seems to be in virtue of this automatic co-ordination of the elements of judgment, rather than of any process of conscious ratiocination, that the race, like the individual, emancipates itself from early prejudices, gets rid of worn-out beliefs, and learns to look at things as they are, rather than as they have been traditionally represented. This is what is really expressed by the progress of rationalism. For although that progress undoubtedly depends in great part upon the more general diffusion of knowledge and the higher culture of those intellectual powers which are exercised in the acquirement of it, yet this alone would be of little avail, if the self-discipline thus exerted did not act downwards in improving the mechanism that evolves the self-evident material of our reasoning processes, as well as upwards in more highly elaborating their product. If we examine, for instance, the history of the decline of the belief in witchcraft, we find that it was not killed by discussion, but perished of neglect. The common sense of the best part of mankind has come to be ashamed of ever having put any faith in things whose absurdity now appears self-evident; no discussion of evidence once regarded as convincing is any longer needed; and it is only among those of our hereditarily uneducated population, whose general intelligence is about on a par with that of a Hottentot or an Esquimaux, that we any longer find such faith entertained.

There is, in fact, a sort of under-current, not of actually formed opinion, but of tendency to the formation of opinions, in certain directions, which bursts every now and then to the surface; exhibiting a latent preparedness in the public mind to look at great questions in a new point of view, which leads to most striking results when adequately guided. That “the hour is come—and the man” is what history continually reproduces; neither can do anything effectively without the other. But a great idea thrown out by a mind in advance of its age, takes root and germinates in secret, shapes the unconscious thought of a few individuals of the next generation, is by them diffused still more widely, and thus silently matures itself in the womb of time, until it comes forth, like Minerva, in full panoply of power.

Those who are able to look back with intelligent retrospect over the political history of the last half-century and who witness the now general pervasion of the public mind by truths which it accepts as self-evident, and by moral principles which it regards as beyond dispute, can scarcely realize to themselves the fact that within their own recollection the fearless assertors of those truths and principles were scoffed at as visionaries or reviled as destructives. And those whose experience is limited to a more recent period, must see, in the rapid development of public opinion on subjects of the highest importance, the evidence of a previous unconsciouspreparedness, which may be believed to consist mainly in the higher development and more general diffusion of that automatic co-ordinating power, which constitutes the essence of reason as distinct from reasoning.

Thus, then, every course of intellectual and moral self-discipline, steadily and honestly pursued, tends not merely to clear the mental vision of the individual, but to ennoble the race; by helping to develop that intuitive power, which arises in the first instance from the embodiment in the human constitution of the general resultants of antecedent experience, but which, in its highest form, far transcends the experience that has furnished the materials for its evolution,—just as the creative power of imagination shapes out conceptions which no merely constructive skill could devise.

FOOTNOTES:[4]Note by Editor. Sir Henry Taylor in “The Statesman” says:—“If there be in the character not only sense and soundness, but virtue of a high order, then, however little appearance there may be of talent, a certain portion of wisdom may be relied upon almost implicitly. For the correspondencies of wisdom and goodness are manifold; and that they will accompany each other is to be inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes them good, but also because their goodness makes them wise. Questions of right and wrong are a perpetual exercise of the faculties of those who are solicitous as to the right and wrong of what they do and see; and a deep interest of the heart in these questions carries with it a deeper cultivation of the understanding than can be easily effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity.”

[4]Note by Editor. Sir Henry Taylor in “The Statesman” says:—“If there be in the character not only sense and soundness, but virtue of a high order, then, however little appearance there may be of talent, a certain portion of wisdom may be relied upon almost implicitly. For the correspondencies of wisdom and goodness are manifold; and that they will accompany each other is to be inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes them good, but also because their goodness makes them wise. Questions of right and wrong are a perpetual exercise of the faculties of those who are solicitous as to the right and wrong of what they do and see; and a deep interest of the heart in these questions carries with it a deeper cultivation of the understanding than can be easily effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity.”

[4]Note by Editor. Sir Henry Taylor in “The Statesman” says:—

“If there be in the character not only sense and soundness, but virtue of a high order, then, however little appearance there may be of talent, a certain portion of wisdom may be relied upon almost implicitly. For the correspondencies of wisdom and goodness are manifold; and that they will accompany each other is to be inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes them good, but also because their goodness makes them wise. Questions of right and wrong are a perpetual exercise of the faculties of those who are solicitous as to the right and wrong of what they do and see; and a deep interest of the heart in these questions carries with it a deeper cultivation of the understanding than can be easily effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity.”


Back to IndexNext