Common sense. The manner is very curious in which the logical, metaphysical, and theological speculations, to which the busy world is indifferent, or from which it is entirely averse, do yet in their results descend to it, and are adopted by it; while it remains quite unconscious of the source from which they spring, and counts that it has created them for itself and out of its own resources. Thus, many would wonder if asked the parentage of this phrase ‘common sense,’ would count it the most natural thing in the world that such a phrase should have been formed, that it demanded no ingenuity to form it, that the uses to which it is now put are the same which it has served from the first. Indeed, neither Reid, Beattie, nor Stewart seems to have assumed anything else. But in truth this phrase, ‘common sense,’ meant once something very different from that plain wisdom, the common heritage of men, which now we call by this name; having been bequeathed to us by a very complex theory of the senses, and of a sense which was the common bond of them all, and which passed its verdicts on the reports which they severally made to it. This theory of κοινὸς νοῦς, familiar to the Greek metaphysicians (see Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. i. 20), is sufficiently explained by the interesting quotations from Henry More and Burton. In Hawes’ Pastime of Pleasure (cap. 24) the relation between the ‘common wit’ and the ‘five wits’ is at large set forth. For an interesting history of the phrase, see Sir William Hamilton’s edition of Reid’s Works, appendix A, especially pp. 757, &c.; and for some classical uses of it Horace, Sat. i. 3. 65; Juvenal, 8. 73; Seneca, Ep. 5. 3; 105. 4; De Benef. i. 12. 3; Quintilian, i. 2. 20.
The senses receive indifferently, without discretion and judgement, white and black, sweet and sour, soft and hard; for their office is only to admit their several objects, and to carry and refer the judgement thereof to the common sense.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 732.
But for fear to exceed the commission of an historian (who with the outward senses may only bring in the species, and barely relate facts, not with the common sense pass verdict or censure on them), I would say they had better have built in some other place, especially having room enough besides, and left this floor, where the Temple stood, alone in her desolations.—Fuller, Holy War, b. i. c. 4.
That there is some particular or restrained seat of the common sense is an opinion that even all philosophers and physicians are agreed upon. And it is an ordinary comparison amongst them, that the external senses and the common sense considered together are like a circle with five lines drawn from the circumference to the centre. Wherefore, as it has been obvious for them to find out particular organs for the external senses, so they have also attempted to assign 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, &c., 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 centre, and that there the soul does also judge and discern of the difference of the objects of the outward senses.—H. More, Immortality of the Soul, b. iii. c. 13.
Inner senses are three in number, so called because they be within the brain-pan, as common sense, phantasy, memory. Their objects are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible species of things to come, past, absent, such as were before in the sense. This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, but by my common sense, who judgeth of sounds and colours; they are but the organs to bring the species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, and all the offices are his. The fore part of the brain is his organ or seat.—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2.
Companion. This had once the same contemptuous use which its synonym ‘fellow’ still retains (for a curious use of this see 2 Pet. ii. 14, Geneva Version), and which ‘gadeling,’ a word of the same meaning, had, so long as it survived in the language. Clarendon speaks of the Privy Council as at one time composed of upstarts, factious, indigent companions (b. iv.). The notion originally involved in companionship, or accompaniment, would appear to have been rather that of inferiority than of equality. A companion was an attendant.
What should the wars do with these jigging fools?
Companion, hence.
Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, act iv. sc. 3
As that empty barren companion in St. James who bids the poor be warm and fed and clothed (as if he were all made of mercy), yet neither clothes, feeds, nor warms his back, belly, or flesh, so fares it with these lovers.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 391.