“Common sense is nothing else than that general knowledge of first notions or principles which is found in all men” (p. 65). Common sense, according to Webster, is that power of the mind which, by a kind of instinct or a short process of reasoning, perceives truth, the relation of things, cause and effect, etc., and hence enables the possessor to discern what is right, useful, or proper, and adopt the best means to accomplish his purpose. This definition, or rather description, is wonderfully correct. That kind of instinct, in fact, which the Scotch philosophers wrongly consider as blind, is really nothing less than a short process of reasoning, which carries evidence within itself. Reasoning, when _formal_—that is, when its premises and its conclusion present themselves distinctly and in a logical form, as in the scientific demonstration—carries within itself what may be styled _reflex_ evidence; and, when _informal_—that is, when the conclusion and its grounds present themselves as implied in one another without assuming the formal shape of an argument—it carries within itself what may be called _direct_ evidence; and because it is in this second manner that men commonly acquire their first convictions, this shorter and informal process of reasoning is called reasoning of _common sense_. Accordingly, common sense is not merely “a general knowledge,” but a source of general knowledge, extending to all conclusions that are evident but informal, and especially to moral dictates, such as “Good is to be done,” “Evil is to be shunned,” “God is to be honored,” etc., which in fact have ever been known by the special name of judgments of common sense—_sensus naturæ communis_. “The laws of nature, considered individually, are contingent” (p. 76). Would they cease to be contingent if they were not considered individually? “Metaphysics literally means _above nature_, and nature here signifies the material world” (p. 81). These two assertions do not agree with the common notion of metaphysics, and have been refuted in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for December, 1873. “Special metaphysics has been called _pneumatology_” (p. 81). Pneumatology is only a part of special metaphysics. Every one knows that cosmology and anthropology belong to special metaphysics no less than natural theology. “In this dissertation (ontology) we consider being as abstracted from existence” (p. 81). Ontology does not consider being as abstracted from existence, but considers being as such, and therefore as existing either in the order of things, or at least in the order of ideas. It is as impossible to conceive being as abstracted from existence as to conceive a circle as abstracted from rotundity.