COMMON SENSE (aND SCIENCE ) 5 



Common sense and prevision. Why do we speak of common sense? 

 First, because it is possessed and employed in much the same man- 

 ner by the generahty of mankind. The sage has uncommon sense: 

 his less gifted contemporaries have a sense common to all. Second, 

 because it is unexalted, untheoretical; it is down-to-earth, actively 

 concerned with the business of living as distinct from the purposes 

 or values or meaning of living. We judge that a man lacks common 

 sense when he fails to adopt some course of action we feel he should 

 recognize as most likely to yield him the ends he seeks— when he 

 fails to foresee, as he should, the future consequences of present ac- 

 tion. To lack common sense is to lack a previsional capacity. 



Can anything as mundane as common sense lay claim to such an 

 exalted capacity? On what basis can the future possibly be foreseen? 

 Past experience oflFers the only possible basis. Common sense must 

 so work upon the experience of the past that it is made available for 

 anticipation of the future. The person lacking common sense may 

 fail to detect any recognizable pattern in his past experience, and so 

 lack all basis for extrapolation into the future; or he may fail to 

 recognize the recurrence of situations that have been eflFectively dealt 

 with in terms of some particular pattern. In either case he fails to 

 learn from experience. Capacity for such learning is a cherished 

 faculty of man; common sense represents the exercise of that faculty. 



We do not recognize common sense in the lower animals. In them 

 "instinct," various tropisms, and conditioned behavior serve to pro- 

 duce activity without— we may suppose— any prevision of the conse- 

 quences of that response. But if the species is to survive, the instinc- 

 tive responses must for the most part be appropriate responses, giv- 

 ing the appearance of a sound foresight. Meyerson says: 



. . . foresight is indispensable for action. Now action for any organ- 

 ism of the animal kingdom is an absolute necessity. Surromided by 

 hostile nature it must act, it must foresee, if it wishes to live. "All 

 life, all action," says Fouillee, "is a conscious or an unconscious 

 divining. Divine or you will be devoured." 



In the higher animals the nonreflective responses give way to ac- 

 tivity more closely controlled by what, in the apes, approaches that 

 which passes as common sense in man. A better contrived, more 

 subtly varied response to the situations of everyday life then be- 

 comes possible. Given sound common sense, says Santayana, 



