Common sense is a rare and enviable quality. It may be truly said that 'its price is above rubies'. How many learned men, how many wits, how many geniuses, how many dull and ignorant people, how many cunning knaves, how many wellmeaning fools are without it!
How few have it, how little do they or others know of it, except from the infalliable resultsfor one of its first requisites is the utter absence of all pretension.
The vulgar laugh at the pedant and enthusiast for the want of it, while they themselves mistake bigotry and narrow minded notions for it. It is not one of the sciences, but has been well pronounced to be 'fairly worth the seven'.
It is a kind of mental instinct, that feels the air of truth and propriety as the fingers feel objects of touch.
It does not consist with ignorance for we cannot pronounce on what we do not know; and on the other hand, the laying in of a stock of knowledge, or mastering any art or science seems to destroy that native simplicity and to warp and trammel the unbiased freedom of mind which is necessary to its receiving and giving their due weight to ordinary and casual impressions.
Common sense is a rare and enviable quality because:
