Los Angeles herald., 1908-10-18
PUBLIC STARTLED
BY COMP PROMISES
HEALING" ENTERS
CHURCHES
Christian Science Writer Takes Up
the Problem of the Authority of
Common Sense; Shows De-
fective Standards
BY GEORGE II. MOORE

by GEORGE II. MOORE
It would be difficult TO find any
type of mentality more inhospitaole
to new ideas than is that of the COM
placent exponent of a dominant re-
ligion-whatever that religion may be.
Entrenched in the faith of his fathers,
and fortified by the approval of the
unthinking majority, such a man en-
bodies his settled beliefs in the for
mulas of a self-declared common sense,
and then makes of those formulas a
permanent barricade against spiritual
enlightenment and progress. The re-
suit of this human tendency, in these
days of uneasy faith and shifting
creeds, is that appeal to the plati-
tudes of common sense, as pretext or
justification for mental and spiritual
inertia, which is sadly overworked. 1t
is time that IT be relieved, in part at
least, of its heavy burden.
What is common sense? State any
contingency and ask a hundred men
for a common-sense solution, and you
may receive scores of answers. Yet
every one of the hundred will accept
as true the dictionary definition of
common sense: native, practical in
telligence, such that, if person be
deficient therein, he is accounted mad
practical intelligence is subject to
widely divergent Interpretation. In
practice common sense signifies little
more than the personal criterion of
judgment, surprisingly complacent and
final in its pronouncements. Common
sense is my good judgment; nom
sense is the ''other fellows" differing
judgment.
The man distinguished for common
sense is the man who most nearly
agrees with his fellows, or. differing
from them, is too discreet to offend
them. This is as true of communities
as it is of individuals, for common
sense is essentially a community af-
fair, be the grouping one of race or
creed, of culture or ignorance, or
whatever else it may be that unites
them in support of some self-apporoved
notion of good form.
Defines Common Sense
Community common sense resolves
itself into a sense of things held in
common, whose sole authority is COM
mon consent; and here is its danger.
The illusion of the mass is only the
illusion of its units intensified. Both
must be judged by the same standard.
The mass has no wisdom of its own.
Indeed, the sense of the mass or of the
mob is of an even lower order than
that of it's individual components.
mob is born of and maintained by fear
or hate; and such qualities paralyze
action and initiate in its
place blind and unreasoning Impulse
Human society shows its kinship with
the mob whenever society lends itself
to the sway of unreasoning prejudice,
unframed impulse and fear, or to the
defense and perpetuation
of barren or destructive institutions;
whenever it makes the institutions of
its own creation an end in themselves,
rather than a means to higher ends;
whenever it contends for things as they
seem 70 be, rather than Tor thlngS as
they should be.
The common sense of humanity is
not, therefore, the combined wisdom
of its components. 1t is rather the
common denominator of intelligence,
the average which the common man
accepts, to which the rare man only
takes exception.
To all but the rare man, community
common sense acts plainly as a check
and a damper; to mental adventure
and exploration it is distinctly hostile
Hence it is that the delusions of COM
mon sense are such superlative folly
they are so well supported and so te-
nacious of life. 1t is also apparent that
there can be no sense of things so
common as TO Dt uillN6lSdl, uhtll III
manity attains to one Mind and its
absolute standard of right; and it is
clear that such unity is forever impos-
sible to a people whose thought is
glued to the past, to that which is ap-
proved in habit and use, so that it is
to new ideas and unfriend-
ly to change and advancement
A hide-bound and complacent COM
mon sense has always stoned its proph-
cts, has always tried to cruelty the
Messiah; and always will, for 1t is
the nature of mob-sense to do violence
to it's savior.
Thea clarifying element of the situ-
alton appears in the fact that indi-
vidual ambition and progress put such
a premium on heresy that no sta
tionary type of common sense, no ten
tative definition of good judgment,
can be rendered binding on those who
have courage to rebel against its limi-
tations. No community can be arbiter
of the mental competency of its more
neighbor.
Unity with Mind
THE common sense of no age can de-