Common sense, in a high philosophical signification, is the sum of human opinions and feelings; or the "Universal Sense" of mankind. That is not homely--and cannot therefore be what Stewart calls that "homely endowment." The apter translation of the place in his Essay is "ordinary sense or understanding"--which seems to suggest _now_ "so much sense or understanding as you ordinarily meet with among men"--and _now_ "sense and understanding applied to ordinary concerns." Only this last makes the quality _homely_. But the tooth of Stewart's insult is in the prior suggestion (in the case of the Gifted, untrue), that they have not as much sense or understanding as you ordinarily meet with. They have ten, twenty, a thousand times as much. Think of Robert Burns! But they have--or may, I do not say must have--the repugnance to apply the winged and "delighted spirit" to considerations and cares that are easily felt as if sordid and servile--imprisoning--odious. They suffer, however, not for the lack of knowing, but of resolution to conform their doing to their knowing. They sin against common sense--and much more against their own. _Hinc illæ lacrymæ._ NORTH. Gentlemen, the Cardinal Virtue--Prudence--holds her sway, in the world of man, over Action, and, as much as she may, over Event, by the union as if of two Sceptres. For She must reign, at once, in the Understanding and in the Will. Common Sense, as the word is commonly meant and understood, is Intellectual Prudence applied to the more obvious requisitions of the more obvious interests which daily and hourly claim our concern and regard. This Intellectual Prudence, thus applied--that is to say, the clear Intelligence of these requisitions--Common Sense, therefore--one man has, and another has not. The case shall occur that the man, Poet or no Poet, who has it, shall act like a fool; whilst the Poet or no Poet, who has it not, shall act like a Sage. For the man, wise to see and to know, shall have yielded the throne of his Will to some usurping and tyrannising desire--and the other, who either does not possess, or who possessing, has not so applied the Intelligence--some dedicated Mathematician, or Metaphysician, or Mechanician, or Naturalist, or Scholar, or Antiquary, or Artist, or Poet, shall live wisely, because he has brought his heart and his blood under the rule of Moral Necessity. Prudence, or, in her stead, Conscience, has established her reign in his Will. To be endowed with Common Sense is one thing; to _act_ with common sense, or agreeably to her demands, is another. Popular speech--loose, negligent, self-willed, humoursome and humorous--often poetical--easily and gladly confounds the two neighbouring cases. Philosophic disquisition--which this of Dugald Stewart does not--should sedulously hold them apart. You may judge of a man's Common Sense by hearing him criticise the character and conduct of his neighbour. To learn in what hand the