OF COMMON SENSE. 



385 



antipodes; or that the surface of the earth, which appears to be a plane, could 

 be spherical, and that men and women of our own shape and make could 

 exist on its reverse side, with their feet opposed to our own. When the 

 Dutch ambassador told the king of Siam, who had never seen or heard of 

 such a thing as frost, that the water in his country would sometimes in cold 

 weather be so hard, that men might walk, and bullocks be roasted upon it, 

 his well-known answer was delivered upon the principles of common sense. 

 He spoke from what he had seen, and from what every one had seen around 

 him, and he relied upon the common appearances of nature. " Hitherto," 

 said he, "I have believed the strange things you have told me, because I 

 looked upon you as an honest man ; but now I am sure you are a liar." Yet 

 this is the faculty held up in the system before us as a sure and infallible 

 judge, whose office it is to correct the errors of reason, and to prove to us 

 that every thing exists precisely as it appears to exist.* 



How much clearer, and to the purpose, is the explanation of this subject 

 given by the excellent Bishop Butler, and how perfectly in unison with the 

 language of Mr. Locke ! "That v/hich renders beings," says he, "capable 

 of moral government, is their having a moral nature and moral faculties of 

 perception and action. Brute creatures are impressed and actuated by vari- 

 ous instincts and propensions : so also are we. But additional to this we 

 have A CAPACITY OF REFLECTING upon actioHS and characters, and making them 

 an object to our thought ; and on our doing Tms, we naturally and unavoid- 

 ably approve some actions, and disapprove others, as vicious and of ill desert. 

 — It is manifest that a great part of common language and of common be- 

 haviour over the world is formed upon the supposition of such a moral fa- 

 culty; whether called conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or divine rea- 

 son ; whether considered as a sentiment of the understanding or a perception 

 of the heart, or, which seems the truth, as including both."f Here we have 

 laid down a firm and impregnable basis: it is the capacity of reflection : an 

 arrival at the intrinsic nature of natural and moral good, and natural and 

 moral evil, through the operation of our own reason : — that faculty of reason 

 which the same distinguished writer, instead of despising or undervaluing, 

 expressly calls in another place, after Solomon, " the candle of the Lord ;" 

 but which he adds, " can afford no light where it does not shine, nor judge 

 where it has no principles to judge upon. "J 



With this remark I feel that I might safely drop this part of the argument : 

 but as I have referred Mr. Stewart to his own description of the blind and 

 deaf boy, in refutation of his view of the powers and duties of the external 

 senses, I will, in like manner, refer Dr. Reidto Dr. Reid himself in refutation 

 of the doctrine immediately before us, that every thing exists precisely as it 

 appears to exist. In page 173 of his chapter on the quality of colours, he 

 tells us, that the colour of the body is in the body itself— a scarlet rose being 

 as much a scarlet in the dark as in the day ; but that the apparition or appear- 

 ance of the colour is in the eye or the mind. But when he tells us this, does 

 he not tell us, in as plain terms as can be used, that the object and its appa- 

 rition or appearance are in a state of separation from each other ? that they 

 are two distinct things, and exist in two distinct places? and consequently, 

 that, instead of every thing being as it seems to be, nothing has a being either 

 as it seems to be, or where it seems to be ? Nay, does he not, in spite of him- 



* Dr. Beattie has adopted this precise line of reasoning under the influence of his Common-Sense prin- 

 ciples: and points out, by analogy, tiiat the opinion of" the Siamese monarch was founded upon a basis 

 which nothing could shake, or ought to shake; for the only appeal that any opposing evidence could make 

 to him must have been through the medium of his reason, which is a less infallible judge than common 

 sense, and hence less worthy of attention. " Common sense," says he, " tells me that the ground on which 

 I stand is hard, material, and solid.— Now, if my common sense be mistaken, who shall ascertain and cor- 

 rect the mistake ? Our reason, it is said. Are, then, the inferences of reason, in this instance, clearer 

 and more decisive than the dictates of common sense 1 By no means. I still trust to my common sense 

 as before, and I feel that I must do so. But supposing the inferences of the one faculty as clear and deci- 

 sive as the dictates of the other ; yet who shall assure me I hat my reason is less liable to mistake than my 

 common sense 1 — In a word, no doctrine ought to be believed as true that exceeds belief and contra 

 PICTS A FIRST PRINCIPLE." — OnTrutli. parti, ch. i. 



t Analogy of Reli^'ion, Natural and Revealed. Diss. ii. of the Nature of Virtue. 



1 Ibid, part iL Conclusion. 



Bb 



