Property and Common Sense 121 
formulated 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 more 
living than the end of a finger-nail, is so dangerous to 
common sense ways of looking at life and death; I had 
better, therefore, be more explicit. By this admission 
degrees of livingness are admitted within the body; this 
involves approaches to non-livingness. On this the question 
arises, ‘‘ Which are the most living parts?’ The answer 
to this was given a few years ago with a flourish of trumpets, 
and our biologists shouted with one voice, “ Great is proto- 
plasm. There is no life but protoplasm, and Huxley is its 
prophet.” Read Huxley’s ‘‘ Physical Basis of Mind.” 
Read Professor Mivart’s article, ‘What are Living Beings ?”” 
in the Contemporary Review, July, 1879. Read Dr. Andrew 
Wilson’s article in the Gentleman’s Magazine, October, 
1879. Remember Professor Allman’s address to the 
British Association, 1879; ask, again, any medical man 
what is the most approved scientific attitude as regards 
the protoplasmic and non-protoplasmic parts of the body, 
