OF COMMON SENSE. 



383 



intended to supply the place of the innate ideas of M. Des Cartes, as these 

 innate ideas were designed to supply the place of the intelligible world of the 

 Greek schools 1 



" It is hardly possible for us," says Dr. Beattie, " to explain these dictates 

 of our nature according to common sense and common experience, in such 

 language as shall be liable to no exception. The misfortune is, that many of 

 the words we must use, though extremely well understood, are either too 

 simple or too complex in their meaning to admit a logical definition."* But 

 the plain fact is, that they have not come to any deiinite meaning among 

 themselves.! Let us, then, just give a glance at the two leading terms, for it 

 is hardly worth while to follow up the whole of them. These are common 

 sense and instinct: both of which seem by Dr. Reid, and in various places by 

 Dr. Beattie and Mr. Dugald Stewart, to be used in their popular import. Can 

 any man for a moment, who has the slightest knowledge of physiology and 

 philology, seriously admit that common sense and instinct are the same 

 thing 1 or rather ought to be confounded under the same term 1 Do these 

 writers believe so themselves, whenever they form any clear and precise idea 

 of these faculties in their own minds'? " Common sense," says Mr. Dugald 

 Stewart, is " the common reason of mankind and every man of common 

 sense will, I suppose, accede to this definition. But common sense, says Dr. 

 Reid, as though in direct opposition to Mr. Stewart, is not reason : for it is 

 that principle which compels us " to take things for granted without being 

 able to give a reason for them."^ — " Common sense," says Dr. Beattie, " is 

 an instinctive impulse. Common sense is not reason, but instinct. It is in- 

 stinct, and not reason, that determines me to believe my touch ; it is instinct, 

 and not reason, that determines me to believe that visible sensations, when 

 consistent with tangible, are not fallacious • and it is either instinct or reason- 

 ing, founded on experience (that is, on the evidence of sense), that deter- 

 mines me to believe the man's stature a permanent and not a changeable 

 thing."ii 



Now% the first thing that cannot fail to strike us, on comparing these pas- 

 sages together, is the contradictory definitions they contain ; the singular 

 confusion which runs through the whole of them in respect to the three ideas 

 of reason, common sense, and instinct ; and the acknowledged difficulty the 

 writers feel of drawing a line between the first and the last two of these 

 principles, upon which, however, the whole system of the new philosophy 

 hinges. Surely, "if reasoning, founded on experience," which is the very 

 language of Mr. Locke, as well as of Dr. Beattie, be sufficient to determine 

 us, and is, probably, the principle actually appealed to in one case of external 



* Part i. ch. ii. p. 32. 



t The phrases KOINAI AOHAT, or common sentiments, of Aristotle," Premieres Veritas or Primary 

 Truths of Buffier, or even Iiinaie Ideas of Des Cartes, whatever be the truth or fallacy of the doctrines 

 they impart, are far less exceptionable than thai of Common Sense, as being far less capable of being mis- 

 understood. Attempts have been made to support this phrase by a reference to its employment by other 

 writers, and even in the Latin tongue; and poets as well as metaphysicians have been brought forward 

 with their suflrages. But all this is to no purpose, unless it could be proved that such writers had used it 

 in the same meaning as the chief supporters of the present hypothesis, and that this meaning was one 

 and indivisible. Mr. Stewart has felt himself particularly called upon to admit the loose and unsettled 

 character of Dr. Beattie's language, and especially in one of his accounts of Common Sense, which he 

 declares "is liable to censure in almost every line." Elem. ch. i. lect. iii. p. 83: while Dr. Reid, on the 

 very same subject, has been far more roughly handled both by the English trahslator of Buffier, and by 

 Sir James Stewart, ibid. p. 88. 



" One unlucky consequence," observes Mr. Stewart, " has unquestionably resulted from the coincidence 

 of so many writers connected wiih this norlhern part of the island, in adopting, about the same period, 

 thesamephia.se, as a sort of philosophical watch-word :— that, although their views differ widely in vari- 

 ous respects, they have in general been classed together as partisans of a new sect, and as mutually respon- 

 sible for the doctrines of each other. It is easy to perceive the use likely to be made of this accident by 

 an uncaridid antagoiii.st." — Ibid. p. 89. 



I have endeavoured as much as possible to avoid being open to any such charge, by confining my re- 

 marks to a few alone of the pillars of the school before us; and by selecting alone those who, from per- 

 sonal ftiend>hip and confidential acquaintance with each other's lliought.-^, are universally regarded as 

 being both the most accordant and ablest defendants of their hypothesis. And if, among writers so closely 

 united, disciepancies of doctrine or opinion should be frequent and flagrant, the only deduction that can 

 be drawn from so unhappy a fact is, that the hypothesis cannot be made to hold true to itself, and is faulty 

 in its first principles. 



t Essay ii. p. GO. Inquiry, ch. ii. lect. vi. Esssay on Truth, part ii. ch. i. p. 95, 



