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common sense, -sense
[repr. Gr. κοινὴ αἴσθησις, L. sensus commūnis, F. sens commun.]
†1. An ‘internal’ sense which was regarded as the common bond or centre of the five senses, in which the various impressions received were reduced to the unity of a common consciousness. Obs.
[Cf.1398–1509common wit s.v. common a. 21.] 1543Traheron Vigo's Chirurg. i. ii. 3 They [eyes] were ordeyned of nature in the former part [of the head]..that they might carye visible thinges to y⊇ commune sens. 1606L. Bryskett Civ. Life 123 Which common sense, is a power or facultie of the sensitiue soule..and is therefore called common, because it receiueth commonly the formes or images which the exteriour senses present vnto it, and hath power to distinguish the one from the other. 1621Burton Anat. Mel. i. i. ii. vii, Inner Senses are three in number, so called, because they be within the brain-pan, as Common Sense, Phantasie, Memory..This Common sense is the Judge or Moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects. Ibid. iii. xiii, The external senses and the common sense considered together are like a circle with five lines drawn from the circumference to the centre. 1842Sir W. Hamilton in Reid's Wks. (1872) II. 756/2 note, Common Sense (κοινὴ αἴσθησις) was employed by Aristotle to denote the faculty in which the various reports of the several senses are reduced to the unity of a common apperception.
fig.c1645Howell Lett. v. (1650) 174 Cabbage, turnips, artichocks, potatoes, and dates, are her five senses, and pepper the common sense.
2. The endowment of natural intelligence possessed by rational beings; ordinary, normal or average understanding; the plain wisdom which is everyone's inheritance. (This is ‘common sense’ at its minimum, without which one is foolish or insane.) † Formerly also in pl., in phr. besides his common senses: out of his senses or wits, ‘beside himself’.
1535Joye Apol. Tindale (Arb.) 36, I am suer T[indale] is not so farre besydis his comon sencis as to saye the dead bodye hereth cristis voyce. 1561T. Norton Calvin's Inst. i. 13 Vnlesse he be voide of all common sense and natural wit of man. 1602T. Fitzherbert Apol. 20 a, I referre me to the iudgement of any man that hath but common sence. 1690Locke Hum. Und. i. iii. §4 He would be thought void of common sense who asked on the one side, or on the other side went to give a reason, why it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. 1711Addison Spect. No. 70 ⁋2 A Reader of plain common Sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend an Epigram of Martial. 1744Harris Three Treat. Wks. (1841) 46 note, Common sense..a sense common to all, except lunatics and ideots. 1799Mackintosh Study Law Nature Wks. 1846 I. 363 Whoever thoroughly understands such a science, must be able to teach it plainly to all men of common sense. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 404 Common sense will not teach us metaphysics any more than mathematics.
b. More emphatically: Good sound practical sense; combined tact and readiness in dealing with the every-day affairs of life; general sagacity.
1726Amherst Terræ Fil. xx. 100 There is not (said a shrewd wag) a more uncommon thing in the world than common sense..By common sense we usually and justly understand the faculty to discern one thing from another, and the ordinary ability to keep ourselves from being imposed upon by gross contradictions, palpable inconsistencies, and unmask'd imposture. By a man of common sense we mean one who knows, as we say, chalk from cheese. 1775Priestley Exam. Reid 127 Common sense..in common acceptation..has long been appropriated..to that capacity for judging of common things that persons of middling capacities are capable of. 1852Tennyson Ode Wellington iv, Rich in saving common-sense. 1888Wormall in Times 16 Jan. 8/1 The general demand was for intelligence, sagacity, soundness of judgment, clearness of perception, and that sanity of thinking called common sense.
†c. Ordinary or untutored perception. Obs.
1588Shakes. L.L.L. i. i. 57 To know..Things hid and bard from common sense..is studies god-like recompence.
d. As a quality of things said or done (= ‘something accordant to or approved by common sense’).
1803Mackintosh Def. Peltier Wks. 1846 III. 270, I ask you again, Gentlemen, is this common sense? 1866G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. iii. (1878) 34 To him it was just common sense, and common sense only. 1884G. Denman in Law Rep. 29 Chanc. Div. 467 It is only common sense that..you should look at the whole of the document together.
3. The general sense, feeling, or judgement of mankind, or of a community.
1596Spenser F.Q. iv. x. 2 That all the cares and evill which they meet May..seeme gainst common sence to them most sweet. 1663J. Spencer Prodigies (1665) 390 These are to be received by the common sense of a Nation, as Gods warning pieces. 1695Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth i. (1723) 1 The common Sense of mankind. 1713Berkeley Hylas & Phil. iii. Wks. 1871 I. 329, I am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense of the world for the truth of my notion. 1872Grote Aristotle II. App. ii. 285 What Aristotle..defines as matters of common opinion and belief includes all that is usually meant, and properly meant, by Common Sense—what is believed by all men or by most men. 1874Sidgwick Meth. Ethics iii. xi. §6. 333 The promise which the Common Sense of mankind recognises as binding.
4. Philos. The faculty of primary truths; ‘the complement of those cognitions or convictions which we receive from nature; which all men therefore possess in common; and by which they test the truth of knowledge, and the morality of actions’ (Hamilton Reid's Wks. II. 756).
Philosophy of Common Sense: that philosophy which accepts as the ultimate criterion of truth the primary cognitions or beliefs of mankind; e.g. in the theory of perception, the universal belief in the existence of a material world. Applied to the Scotch school which arose in the 18th c. in opposition to the views of Berkeley and Hume.
[c1705Berkeley Commonpl. Bk. Wks. IV. 455 Mem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, etc., and recalling men to Common Sense.] 1758Price Rev. Quest. Morals (ed. 2) 81 Common sense, the faculty of self-evident truths. 1764Reid (title), An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. 1770Beattie Ess. Truth in Ann. Reg. (1772) 253 Common Sense hath, in modern times, been used by philosophers, both French and British, to signify that power of the mind which perceives truth, or commands belief, not by progressive argumentation, but by an instantaneous, instinctive, and irresistible impulse; derived neither from education nor from habit, but from nature. 1776Campbell Philos. Rhet. (1801) I. i. ii. 99 To maintain propositions the reverse of the primary truths of common sense, doth not imply a contradiction, it only implies insanity. 1842Sir W. Hamilton in Reid's Wks. II. 742 On the Philosophy of Common Sense; or our primary beliefs considered as the ultimate criterion of truth. 1871Fraser in Berkeley's Wks. I. 183 The universal concurrent assent of mankind may be thought by some an invincible argument in behalf of Matter. (Note, Commonly called the argument from Common Sense.) 1874Sidgwick Meth. Ethics p. xi, Dogmatic Intuitionism, in which the general rules of Common Sense are accepted as axiomatic.
5. attrib. (the two words being always hyphened).
1854E. Forbes Lit. Papers i. 43 Common-sense views are the last to take hold on men's minds. 1872Morley Voltaire (1886) 93 The air was thick with common-sense objections to Christianity, as it was with common-sense ideas as to the way in which we come to have ideas. 1874Sidgwick Meth. Ethics i. vi. §3. 70 Egoism and Utilitarianism may fairly be regarded as extremes between which the Common-Sense morality is a kind of media via.
Hence common-ˈsensed a., possessing common sense. common-ˈsensely adv., in a common sense manner. common-sense-o-dox a. nonce-wd. on type of orthodox. common(-)ˈsensible, -bly, possessing, or characterized by, common sense. (All more or less nonce-words.)
1875M. G. Pearse Dan. Quorm Ser. i. (1879) 26 Pithy, plain, *common-sensed. 1884J. Parker Apost. Life III. 66 Common-sensed and real-hearted men.
1878Grosart in H. More's Poems Introd. 36/2 Thus *common-sensely does he put the matter.
1866Reade G. Gaunt I. 207 He did not think it..*common-sense-o-dox to turn his back upon their dinner.
1851Hawthorne Snow Image (1879) 30 This highly benevolent and *common-sensible individual. 1875Helps Soc. Press. xxv. 382 Common-sensible conclusions. a1907F. Thompson St. Ignatius Loyola (1909) x. 200 High sanctity..is eminently common-sensible. 1931Sat. Rev. 6 June 819/2 The Archbishop of York's speech is ranked as the best; next to that Lord Newton's, witty, humorous, and commonsensible.
1890Univ. Rev. 15 July 455 He chattered away..*common⁓sensibly enough. |