THE PROJECTOR. N° 98.

"Ille communis, qui est cunctis in mortalibus, sensus.'

IN

ARNOBIUS.

August 1809.

N an admirable miscellany of reflexions and criticisms just published, under the title of Anonymiana, it is remarked, that "Common Sense is generally esteemed the most useful kind of sense; as, when we hear it said of a person of parts and learning, but giddy, thoughtless, and dissipated, running into debts and difficulties, and taking no manner of care of his affairs, that he has all sorts of sense but Common Sense." The same Author informs us, that "this Common Sense, or a good understanding, is a Latin phrase as well as an English one;" a circumstance which I quote with some satisfaction, for, in what may be here advanced in favour of Common Sense, I should be sorry to be thought a friend to innovations in morals or language.

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Observations similar to the above have been frequently made by other writers; and we

scarcely pass a day without hearing of some advantages which Common Sense might have procured, or some mischiefs which Common Sense might have averted. But, while we pay a compliment to Common Sense, which seems to give it a superiority over the rest of our senses, it has not yet been explained why we call that common, which, we are told, men of parts and learning are not always able to. attain, and which, if we may judge from the many examples of those who want it, does not seem to deserve the epithet so constantly applied to it. And this will appear the more extraordinary, if the opinion be just which some observers of mankind have formed, namely, that few men have Common Sense.

It has been thought that this apparent inconsistency is capable of being explained by a very trifling alteration in the language employed on this subject. If, for example, we say, that few men use Common Sense, it may still be true that the sense we speak of, the sense which distinguishes right from wrong, and proper from improper, is common, and so common, that few persons are found without it. As to the use of it, it is rather whimsical, that those who have made its existence to be doubted by not employing it in their own

affairs and conduct, are, at all times, extremely

ready to apply it to the affairs and conduct of other people. Hence, the antient founders of our laws very wisely determined, that the decision of matters of right and wrong, just and unjust, should rest with twelve men, promiscuously taken from the mass of mankind, and not endued with more enlargement of understanding than is supposed to be included in Common Sense. And it is observed, that when they decide according to this sense, the world so generally acquiesces in their opinion, that there remains but one person dissatisfied, namely, he who has lost his cause; nor would he be a dissentient from their opinion, had he been in any other situation than that in which his obstinacy happened at that time to place him. It must not, indeed, be omitted in every discussion on this subject, that, however common this sense may be, there are very many who either are born with, or afterwards, by some means, contract an aversion to it, and who, knowing the value which others put upon it, are endeavouring to find out a substitute, which they are never able to accomplish.

It is as easy to suppose that a man may possess Common Sense, and yet act like a fool, as it is to suppose that a man may be rich without

liberality; the only use for which riches are calculated. The difference, indeed, between the possession and the use of our senses occurs so often, that Common Sense is by no means a solitary instance, although, in the daily intercourse of life, it may be allowed to be one of the most striking. Whoever has attained but a moderate share of knowledge of the world, or is but a superficial observer of what passes around him, must have frequently remarked that there are men who make very little use either of their eyes or ears, and who, in many matters of great importance and interest, are, to all intents and purposes, both blind and deaf. But it would be wrong to assert from such examples, that seeing and hearing are not Common Senses. The practice in such cases is not absolutely to renounce the use of eyes and ears, or to affect to be blind or deaf, but to delegate the use of our eyes and ears, for a certain time, to other persons, whom we suppose capable of directing us how to employ them. This, among one class of the community, is the origin of what we call Custom, and among another, the origin of what we call Fashion, the two great codes of law by which the little and the great are governed. That, notwithstanding this omnipotence of influence, they abound in absurdities, is frequently acknow

ledged; and those absurdities would be more easily, quickly, and profitably discovered, if we had not agreed to suspend the use of our faculties. Although there is not much wisdom in thus parting with natural for artificial senses, there is at least a degree of humility. Sometimes we find that a whole nation will consent to see and hear at the pleasure of half a dozen of its most worthless inhabitants. Sometimes an assembly of the most sensible and well-educated ladies will condescend to copy a dress, not because it is consistent with their own notions of taste or beauty, but because it is that in which a French strumpet has danced, or an Italian bona roba has

sung.

Of all our senses, however, the subject of this paper, Common Sense, is that which is least employed where it would be most serviceable; and why a guide always at hand, a monitor always prompt to advise, should be suspended from his office in this capricious manner, is not easily to be discovered. Some may think that what is common must be vulgar, and therefore to be disregarded; and I have heard of a person of rank and wealth, who, while he undervalued Common Sense, allowed that it was very necessary "for people who had their bread to get." But, in accounting for the disuse of Common Sense, we shall