SENSE. 



The fcnfes have been fometiraes feund greatly (harpened 

 and improved by difeafes. Mr. Boyle mentions a gentle- 

 man, who, during a diftemper he had in his eyes, had his 

 organs of fight brought to be fo fenfible, that when he 

 waked in the night, he could, for a while, plainly fee and 

 diftinguifh colours, and other objefts ; and the fame author 

 gives an inilance of another perfon, who, after getting half- 

 fuddled with claret, if he waked in the night, could fee for 

 fome time to read a moderate print. 



Grimaldi tells us, that fome women of Megara were able 

 by their eyes alone to diltinguifh between eggs laid by 

 black hens, and thofe by white ones. Grimald. de Lum. 

 & Col. 



In the Philofophical Tranfaftions, N° 312, we have an 

 account of Dan. Frafer, who continued deaf and dumb from 

 his birth to the feventeenth year of his age ; when, upon 

 recovering from a fever, he perceived an uneafy motion in 

 his brain, after which he began to hear, and by degrees to 

 fpeak. 



Dr. Reid, in his fecond Effay, fuggeds a variety of 

 methods, by which our fenfes may be improved, as they 

 give us information of things that concern us. Our original 

 powers of perceiving objefts by our fenfes admit of great 

 improvement by ufe and habit ; but, befides, there are 

 various ways in which our fenfes may be improved, or their 

 defefts remedied by art ; as by a due care of the organs of 

 fenfe, that they be in a found and natural ilate ; by accurate 

 attention to the objeAs of fenfe ; by additional organs or 

 inltruments contrived by art ; and by difcovering the con- 

 ncAion which nature has eftablifhed between the fenfible 

 qualities of objefts, and their more latent quahties. 



Dr. Reid fuggelts, that the fallacy of the fenfes has 

 been a common complaint among philofophers, both ancient 

 and modern ; and this, he thinks, is founded on a common 

 error, to which another has been added, that our ufe of 

 reafon is to detedt the fallacies of fenfe. In his opinion, 

 there is no more reafon to account our fenfes fallacious, 

 than our reafon, our memory, or any other faculty of 

 judging which nature hath given us. They are all limited 

 and imperfeft, but wifely fuited to the prefent condition of 

 man. We are liable to error and wrong judgment in the 

 ufe of them all, but as Uttle in the information of fenfe as in 

 the deduftions of rcafoning ; and the errors we fall into, 

 with regard to objeCls of fenfe, are not corrected by reafon, 

 but by more accurate attention to the information we may 

 receive by our fenfes themfelves. 



Sense, Moral, is a determination of the mind to be 

 plealed with the contemplation of thofe affeftions, aftions, 

 or charafters, of rational agents, which we call good or 

 •virtuous. 



This moral fenfe of beauty in aAions and afieftiont, may 

 appear ftrange at firft view ; fome of our morahfts them- 

 felves are offended at it in lord Shafte(bur)-, as being accuf- 

 tomed to deduce every approbation, or averCon, from ra- 

 tional views of interell. Our gentlem-n of good talte can 

 tell us of a great many fenfes, talles, and rc\i(hes for beauty, 

 harmony, imitation in painting and poetry ; a. id nay we not 

 find, too, in mankind a rtlilh for a beauty in ch:ir-ders, in 

 manners ? The truth is, imman nature does not feen- to have 

 been left quite indifferent in the affair of virtue, to turm to 

 itfelf obfervations concerning the advantage or difadvan- 

 tage of aftions, and accordingly to regulate its conduft. 

 The weaknefs of our reafon, and the avocations anfing from 

 the infirmities and neceilities of our nature, are fo great, 

 that very few of mankind could have framed thofe long 

 dednftions of reafon, which may (hew fome adions to be, 

 in the whole, advantageous, and their contraries pernicious. 

 S 



The Author of nature has much better furnifhed us for i 

 virtuous conduA than our moralills fccm to imagine ; by 

 almoft as quick and powerful inllruftions, as wc have for the 

 prefervation of our bodies : he has made \'irtue a lovely 

 form, to excite our purfuit of it ; and has gi»tn us ftrong 

 affeftions, to be the fprings of each virtuous aftion. Hut- 

 chefon's Inquiry, &c. ubi fupra. Effay on tlic Nature and 

 Conduct of the Paflions, p. 5, &c. See Mental and Moral 

 Philosophy, and alfo Virtue. 



Sense, Public, is defined by the fame author to be our 

 determination to be pleafed with the happinefs of other?, 

 and to be uneafy at their mifery. Thi', he fays, is found 

 in fome degree in all men, and was fometimes called wi- 

 >oronu«rvvT!, or ftnfus communis, by fome of the ancients. 



Sense, Common, is a term that has been varioufly ufcd 

 both by ancient and modern writers. With fome it has 

 been fynonimous with public fenfe ; with others it haa de- 

 noted prudence ; in certain inllances it has been confounded 

 with fome of the powers of talle ; and, accordingly, thofe 

 who commit egregious blunders with regard to decorum, 

 faying and doing what is offeniive to their compariy, and 

 inconfiftent with their own character, have been charged 

 with a defeftin common fenfe. Some men aredillinguifhed 

 by an uncommon acutenefs in difcovering the characters of 

 others ; and this talent has been fometimcs called common 

 fenfe: fimilar to which is that ufe of the term, which makes it 

 to fignify that experience and knowledge of life which is ac- 

 quired by living in fociety. Hor. lib. i. fat. 3. lin. 66. To 

 this meaning Quintilian refers, fpeaking of the advantages 

 of a pubhc education: " Senfumipfum qui communi-;dicitur, 

 ubi difcet, cum fe a congreilu, qui non hominibus folum, 

 fed mutis quoque animalibus naturalis ell, fegrcgarit i" 

 Lib. i. cap. I. 



Dr. Reid obferves, in his 6th Effay, " of Common 

 Senfe," that, in common language, fenle always implies 

 judgment, nor is the popular meaning of the word fenfe 

 pecuhar to the Englilh language : the correfponding words 

 in Greek, Latin, and probably in all the European languages, 

 have the fame latitude. The Latin words fenlere, J'entenlia, 

 fcnfa, fcnjus, from the lall of which the Englilh word fenfe is 

 borrowed, exprefi! judgment or opinion, and are applied in- 

 differently to objects of external fenfe, of talte, of morals, 

 and of underttanding. 



Tills is the meaning which Mr. Pope has given to it ; and 

 in his epiftle to the carl of Burlington he has thus defcantcd 

 upon it : 



" Oft have you hinted to your brother peer, 

 A certain truth, which many buy too dear ; 

 Something there is more needful than expcnce. 

 And fomething previous ev'n to tafte — 'tis Senfe. 

 Good fenfe, which only is »he gift of Heaves ; 

 And though no fcience, fairly »vorth the feven : 

 A hght, which in yourfelf you mull perceive, 

 Jones and Le Notke have it not to give. " 



Having (hewn that fenfe, in its mofl common, and there- 

 fore molt proper meaning, fignilies judgment, our author 

 infers that common feufe Ihould mean common judgment ; 

 as it really does. 



Lord Shaftelbury has given to one of his treatifes the title 

 of <' Senfus Communis ;" and he has introduced fome cri- 

 ticifm upon this word in Juvenal, Horace, and Seneca : 

 after (hewing in his facetious manner, that the fundamental 

 principles of morals, of politics, of criticilm, and of every 

 branch of knowledge, arc the dldates of common fenfe, he 

 lums up the whole in thefe words ; '< that fome moral and 

 philofophical truths are fo evident in themfelves, that it 



would 



