120 Luck, or Cunning ? 
side the body too decisively to allow the question to be 
reopened ; that if this be tolerated we shall have societies 
for the prevention of cruelty to chairs and tables, or cutting 
clothes amiss, or wearing them to tatters, or whatever other 
absurdity may occur to idle and unkind people ; the whole 
discussion, therefore, should be ordered out of court at 
once. 
I admit that this is much the most sensible position to 
take, but it can only be taken by those who turn the deafest 
of deaf ears to the teachings of science, and tolerate no going 
even for a moment below the surface of things. People 
who take this line must know how to put their foot down 
firmly in the matter of closing a discussion. Some one may 
perhaps innocently say that some parts of the body are 
more living and vital than others, and those who stick to 
common sense may allow this, but if they do they must 
close the discussion on the spot ; if they listen to another 
syllable they are lost ; if they let the innocent interlocutor 
say so much as that a piece of well-nourished healthy brain 
is more living than the end of a finger-nail that wants 
cutting, or than the calcareous parts of a bone, the solvent 
will have been applied which will soon make an end of 
common sense ways of looking at the matter. Once even 
admit the use of the participle ‘“ dying,’ which involves 
degrees of death, and hence an entry of death in part into a 
living body, and common sense must either close the dis- 
cussion 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 un- 
specialised 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 
