J32 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



either close the discussion at once, or ere long surrender 

 at discretion. 



Common sense can only carry weight in respect of 

 matters with which every one is familiar, as forming 

 part of the daily and hourly conduct of affairs ; if we 

 would keep our comfortable hard and fast lines, our 

 rough and ready unspecialised ways of dealing with 

 difficult questions, our impatience of what St, Paul 

 calls " doubtful disputations," we must refuse to quit 

 the ground on which the judgments of mankind have 

 been so long and often given that they are not likely 

 to be questioned. Common sense is not yet formu- 

 lated in manners of science or philosophy, for only 

 few consider them ; few decisions, therefore, have been 

 arrived at which all hold final. Science is, like love, 

 "too young to know what conscience," or common 

 sense, " is." As soon as the world began to busy itself 

 with evolution it said good-bye to common sense, and 

 must get on with uncommon sense as best it can. 

 The first lesson that uncommon sense will teach it is 

 that contradiction in terms is the foundation of all 

 sound reasoning — and, as an obvious consequence, 

 compromise, the foundation of all sound practice. 

 This, it follows easily, involves the corollary that as 

 faith, to be of any value, must be based on reason, so 

 reason, to be of any value, must be based on faith, and 

 that neither can stand alone or dispense with the other, 

 any more than culture or vulgarity can stand unalloyed 

 with one another without much danger of mischance. 



It may not perhaps be immediately apparent why 

 the admission that a piece of healthy living brain is 



