COMMON SENSE SCIENCE. 



I. 



SECOND NATURE. 



We have all said a hundred times over that 

 habit is a second nature — repeating thoughtlessly 

 the acute remark of some nameless and forgotten 

 popular philosopher, some Peckham Socrates or 

 some Bloomsbury Aristotle, who first invented, 

 no doubt, that now historical phrase ; but very 

 few of us, in all probability, have ever reflected 

 how profoundly true and brilliantly luminous is 

 the idea wrapped up in that simple and familiar 

 commonplace of the present generation. It is 

 often so with current platitudes ; beginning as 

 the wise and wittj' sayings of some pregnant and 

 pithy local character, they are picked up and re- 

 peated carelessly by other people who never even 

 dream themselves of realizing their full meaning 

 or true import, and they pass at last into the posi- 

 tion of proverbs, bandied about daily in common 

 conversation, with scarcely a relic of their original 

 savor and fresh cleverness remaining in them. 

 And yet the unknown thinker, whoever he may 



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