(OM.MON SENSE 



ro.M.MlMn.N 



387 



The La IP of Common*; Cotiimont and Cmnunm 

 Fields .( 1887) ; ami work* by Smitlon, Chambers, 

 Cooke, Hull, Williams, Shaw I.efevre (1894), and 

 sir K. limner (1897). Lord Thriii^'s act against 

 unlawful enclosure* was pawed in 1893. 



In the United States 'common' in one sense 

 signifies the common or general fields set apart as 

 pasture-land at the foundation of towns or villages ; 

 the idea of such common fields may probably have 

 been suggested by those of semi-feudal England. 

 Common fields also existed in the villages of 

 Frem-li and Spanish settlers. The title to these 

 lands was conlinned to the inhabitants by act of 

 congress. Unappropriated lands in Virginia have 

 similarly been confirmed as common lands by 

 statute, ami the constitution of Illinois sets apart 

 certain lands as commons. Unless the statute 

 expressly forbids, commons in this sense may be 

 divided at the instance of individuals interested, 

 if they think lit to take legal proceedings for that 

 purpose. In the other sense, the term ' common ' 

 is applied to a public park which may belong to 

 the municipality or to the nation e.g. the Yellow- 

 stone Park respecting which no individual or indi- 

 viduals can claim a division. Such parks are under 

 the direct control of the authorities. As applied 

 to a school, the epithet ' common ' means public, 

 supported by taxation, and open to all children of 

 a certain age. It has no reference to the studies of 

 the school. 



Common Sense, THE PHILOSOPHY OF. There 

 are certain beliefs that have been current among 

 men in all ages, which by some philosophers have 

 been declared to be groundless illusions. Of these, 

 the most remarkable instance is the belief in an 

 external, material world, independent of any mind 

 to perceive it. Berkeley's doctrine ( see BERKELEY ) 

 seemed to his contemporaries to contradict this 

 belief, and affirm that there is no such thing as a 

 material world ; and Hume, carrying the same 

 principles to their full length, disintegrated the 

 world of spirits, and left nothing in nature but 

 isolated ideas and impressions. 



A dead-lock in philosophy was the result of these 

 doctrines of Berkeley and Hume ; and the solution 

 offered by Reid consisted in setting up common 

 sense as an arbiter from which there could be no 

 appeal that is to say, the universally admitted 

 impressions of mankind were to be taken as corre- 

 sponding to the fact of things without any further 

 scrutiny. It is only the same view otherwise 

 expressed, when it is declared by other philosophers 

 that the deliverance of consciousness must be pre- 

 sumed true. According to Sir W. Hamilton, in 

 the most elalx>rate vindication of the common-sense 

 philosophy that has ever been produced (in his 

 edition of Reid's works), consciousness assures us 

 that, in perception, we are immediately cognisant 

 of an external and extended non-ego (not-self); 

 and that the testimony of consciousness must be 

 viewed as entitled to prompt and unconditional 

 assent. 



The conclusiveness of this reasoning is disputed 

 by many, who say that it is an abnegation of the 

 tasks of philosophy, and may establish mere pre- 

 judices as dictates of consciousness. Consciousness 

 (q.v.) is a very wide word, comprising indeed every- 

 thing that we call mind. Suppose, it is argued, we 

 were to maintain that the veracity of each one's 

 memory was beyond all question or dispute, it 

 would be apparent at once how the case really 

 stands. But there must be a standard truth. Ex- 

 perience is the criterion how far the memory is to be 

 trusted ; and possibly the same may be true of the 

 larger fact named consciousness. See PHILOSOPHY, 

 PSYCHOLOGY. 



The truths of common sense, assumed to be 

 those of consciousness, are such as these : the 



laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded 

 Miildle; the axioms of Mathematics; the law 

 I Causality (q.v.); the doctrine of an innate 

 mural sense (see article ETIIICK); the doctrine of 

 man's Moral Liberty (see FREE-WILL); the exist- 

 ence of an external world independent of every 

 percipient mind. Home of these truths, which 

 however by no means stand all on the name 

 footing, are termed Intuitions, Intuitive Cognitions, 

 Instincts, Feelings. liclicfs, Principles, Ultimate or 

 Primordial Elements, Truths a priori. Kant's 

 mission was to investigate the origin of such 

 of those truths as might IKJ accounted a priori ; see 

 KANT, A PRIORI. The philosophy of common 

 sense, as promulgated by Reid, l*ore reference espe- 

 cially to the denial by Berkeley of the received 

 view of the material world ; see PERCEPTION. 



Commonty. See COMMONS AND ENCLOSURES. 



Commonwealth ( practically, a translation of 

 Lat. rexpublica, 'republic') is used in a special 

 sense for the form of government established in 

 England after the execution of Charles I. in January 

 1649. Usually the Commonwealth is held to 

 extend till the Restoration in 1660 ; and in the 

 Calendar of State Papers this is the usage of the 

 word. But the Commonwealth is sometimes 

 limited to the period 1649-53, ending with the 

 establishment of Cromwell's Protectorate. See 

 CROMWELL, ENGLAND. Several states of the 

 American Union (as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 

 Virginia) are officially called commonwealths. 



Commune is the unit or lowest division in the 

 administration of France, corresponding in the 

 rural districts to the English parish or township, 

 and in towns to the English municipality. In 

 France there are about 36,000 communes, with a 

 considerable measure of self-government, with the 

 power of holding property, &c. Each commune has 

 a council elected by universal suffrage, and the 

 council is presided over by a maire and one or more 

 adjoints or assistants. In the larger communes the 

 maire is selected by the central government out 

 of the members of the council ; in others he is 

 appointed by the prefect of the department. The 

 central government through its officials exercises 

 generally a very large control over the affairs of the 

 commune. For the Russian commune, see MIR, 

 and RUSSIA. 



The rising of the commune of Paris in 1871 should 

 not be confounded with Communism (q.v.). It was 

 a revolutionary assertion of the autonomy of Paris, 

 that is, of the right of self-government through its 

 commune or municipality. The theory or the 

 rising was that every commune should have a real 

 autonomy, the central government being merely 

 a federation of communes. The movement was 

 based on discontent at Paris, where the people 

 found themselves in possession of arms after the 

 siege by the Germans. The rising began on the 

 18tii March 1871, and was only suppressed ten 

 weeks later after long and bloody fighting between 

 the forces of the commune and a large army of 

 the central government ; 6500 Communists having 

 fallen during 20-30th May, and 38,578 been taken 



J>rispners. See FRANCE ; and see histories of the 

 'aris commune by Lissugaray (trans. 1886) and 

 Thomas March (1896). 



Communion signifies, in ecclesiastical lan- 

 guage, that relation, involving mutual claims and 

 duties, in which those stand who are united by 

 uniformity of belief in one religious body or i-lnnvh. 

 To exclude from this relation and its involved 

 rights is to excommunicate. The most visible 

 symbol of this relation being the partaking together 

 of the Lord's Supper, that rite is often called the 

 Communion. See LORD'S SUPPER, PRAYER-BOOK, 

 LITURGY ; and for Communion Table, see ALTAR. 



