commonsense

& a. A. As substantive: L Ordinary Language: 1. Originally signified a common sense internal, and what may be perhaps termed a collective sense, formed by the union of the five special ones, which were supposed to meet at some point in the body, as the radii of a circle converge to and unite in its center. "That there is some particular or restrained seat of the common sense is an opinion that even old philosophers and physicians are agreed upon. And it is an ordinary comparison among them that the external senses and the common sense, considered together, are like a circle with five lines drawn from the circumference to the center. Wherefore, as it has been obvious for them to find out particular organs for the external senses, so they have also attempted to a ign some distinct part of the body to be an organ of the common sense; that is to say, as they discovered sight to be seated in the eye, hearing in the ear, smelling in the nose, ., so they conceived that there is some part of the body wherein seeing, hearing, and all other perceptions meet together, as the lines of a circle in the center; and that there the soul does also judge and discern of the difference of the objects of the outward senses." Henry More: Immortality of the Soul, vol. iii., ch. 13. (Trench.) 2. The modicum of sense or understanding po e ed by people in general; the power supposed to be po e ed by people in general of deciding simple questions accurately; the common judgment of mankind. "His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretense, His speech rebellion against common sense." Cowper : Hope. II. Mental phil.: When Berkeley, carrying out the system of idealism, had shown that on the principle which is laid down, the existence of the material world could not be proved, and Hume carried Berkeley's scepticism to greater length, the Rev. Dr. Reid, Prof. of Mental Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen, Scotland, built up a system designed to be antagonistic to this sceptical one, in what he called common-sense. The first principles of belief which all ordinary men, not idiots or lunatics, accept undoubtingly, were a umed to be axiomatic, and became the foundation of a system of mental philosophy. Dugald Stewart, holding e entially the same views as Reid, thought the term commonsense an unhappy one, and substituted for it "the fundamental laws of human belief." B. As adjective : Of a view , .: Such a one as an ordinary person of sound judgment would take.