Lesson XII

Common Sense does not Exclude Great Aspirations “A very common error,” says Yoritomo, “is that which consists in classifying common sense among the amorphous virtues, only applicable to things and to people whose fundamental principle is materiality. “This is a calumny which is spread broadcast by fools who scatter their lives to the four winds of caprice and extravagance. “Not only does common sense not exclude beauty, but it really aids in its inception and protects its growth by maintaining the reasons which produced its appearance. “Without it, the reign of the most admired things would be of short duration, granting that the want of logic had not prevented their production. “What is there more commendable than the love of work, devotion to science, ambition to succeed? “Could all this exist if common sense did not intervene to permit the development of the deductions on which are based the resolutions that inspired in us these aspirations. “But this is not all; without logic, which permits us to give them solidity, the most serious resolutions would soon become nothing but vague projects, shattered as soon as formed. “In common sense lies the cause and the object of things. “It is common sense which makes us realize that difference that few persons are willing to analyze, and which lies between judgment and opinion. “We almost always succeed in readily confounding them, and from this mistake results a too-frequent cause of failures. “Opinion is a conviction which is capable of modification. “In addition to this, as it is based on mere indications and probability, it is rarely free from the personal element. “Opinion depends upon the favorite inclination, upon the mood of the moment, upon sundry considerations, which direct it almost always toward the desired solution. “Also it depends often on thoughtfulness or on the inexactness of the initial representation, which we are pleased to disguise slightly at first, then little by little to color in accordance with our desires. “Falsehood does not necessarily enter into this process of tricking things out; it is, three-quarters of the time, the result of an illusion which we are prone to perpetuate within us. “We are too often in the position of the three wise men who, while rummaging in an old sarcophagus, discovered a vase whose primitive function they were unable to determine with any certainty. “One of them was a poet and an idealist. “The second only prized positive things. “The third belonged to the category of melancholy people. “After a few days devoted to special research work, they met together again in order to communicate to each other their different opinions about the exhumed vase. “‘I have found the secret,’ said the first. “‘I also,’ affirmed the second. “‘I equally have found it,’ replied the third. “And each one based his opinion on preconceived notions which reflected their bent of mind: “‘This vase,’ said the first, ‘was intended to hold incense, which they burned a that epoch, in the belief that the smoke dispelled the evil spirits.’ “‘Nonsense!’ cried out the second; ‘this vase is a pot which at that time served as a receptacle for keeping spices.’ “‘Not so!’ insisted the third, ‘it is an urn of antiquated design used for receiving tears; that is all.’ “These three serious men were certainly sincere in giving explanations which each one of them declared decisive. They exprest opinions which they believed implicitly and which their respective natures directed irresistibly toward their peculiar bents of mind. “Judgment, in order to be free from all which is not common sense, ought then to put aside all personal predilections, all desire to form a conclusion to humor our inclinations. “Absolute impartiality of judgment is one of the rarest gifts and at the same time is the noblest quality which we can possess.” We should then conclude, with the Shogun, that common sense aids in the production of noble aspirations, and is not concerned only with that which relates to materiality, as so many people would have us understand. The Nippon philosopher teaches us also the part which he assigns to the habitual practise of goodness. “We are too easily persuaded,” he says, “that goodness, like beauty, is a gift of birth. “It is time to destroy an error rooted in our minds for too many centuries. “Goodness is acquired by reasoning and logic, as are so many other qualities, and it is common sense which governs its formation. “Have we ever reflected over the sum total of annoyances that people, who are essentially wicked, add every day to those imposed upon them by circumstances? “Are we capable of appreciating the joys of life when impatience makes the nerves vibrate or when anger brandishes its torch in the bends and turns of the brain? “People who lack goodness are the first to be punished for their defect. Serenity is unknown to them and they live in perpetual agitation, caused by the irritation which they experience on the slightest provocation.” Common sense indicates then in an irrefutable way that there is every advantage in being good. And Yoritomo proves it to us, by using his favorite syllogism: “Happiness,” he says, “is above all a combination of harmony and absence of sorrow. “Wickedness, by inspiring us with discontent and anger, disturbs this harmony. “We must, therefore, banish wickedness, that we may cultivate goodness, which is the creator of harmony.” Continuing still further the same argument, he adds: “Common sense would have the tendency even to make us promise to be good, so as to satisfy our own egotism. “Goodness creates smiles; to sow happiness around one, is a way of having neither eyes nor heart offended by the sight of people in tears; it is the eliciting of an agreeable joy, whose rays will shed a golden light over our life; is it not more pleasing to hear the ring of laughter than to listen to painful sobs?” So, we should never lose an opportunity of being good and that without mental reservation. Gratitude is not the possession of every soul and he who does good may expect to receive ingratitude. He will not suffer from it, if he has done good, not in the way a creditor does who intends to come on the very day appointed to claim his debt, but as a giver who fulfils his mission from which he is expecting a personal satisfaction, without thinking of any acknowledgment for what he has done. If the debtor is filled with gratitude, the joy of being good is that much increased. There is a species of common sense of a particularly noble quality that is called moral sense and which the Shogun defines thus: “The moral sense is the common sense of the soul; it is the superior power of reasoning which stands before us that we may be prevented from passively following our instincts; it is by its assistance that we succeed without too much difficulty in climbing the steep paths of duty. “This sense discerns an important quality, which puts us on our guard against the danger of certain theories, whose brilliancy might seduce us. “It is the moral sense which indicates to us the point of delimitation separating legitimate concessions from forbidden license. “It allows us to go as far as the dangerous place where the understanding with conscience might become compromised and, by reasoning, proves to us that there would be serious danger in proceeding further. “It is the moral sense which distinguishes civilized man from the brute; it is the regulator of the movements of the soul and the faithful indicator of the actions which depend on it.” We must really pity those who are deprived of moral sense for they are the prey of all the impulses created in them by the brute-nature, which sleeps in the depths of each human creature. The man whose moral sense is developed will live at peace with himself, for he will only know the evil of doubt when he realizes the satisfaction of having conquered it. Moral sense, like common sense, is formed by reasoning and is fostered by the practise of constant application. It is the property of those who avoid evil, as others avoid the spatter of mud, through horror of the stains which result from it. Those who do not have this apprehension flounder about, cover themselves with mud, sink in it and finally are swallowed up. Yoritomo again takes up the defense of common sense, with reference to the arts. “Can one imagine,” he says, “a painter conceiving a picture and grouping his figures in such a way as to violate the rules of common sense? “We should be doomed, if this were true, to see men as tall as oak-trees and houses resembling children’s toy constructions, placed without reference to equilibrium among green or pink animals, whose legs had queer shapes. “Madmen represent nature thus, which seems to them outlined in strange forms. “But people of common sense reproduce things just as sound judgment conceives of them; if they throw around them at times the halo of beauty which seems exaggerated, let us not decry them. “Beauty exists everywhere; it dwells in the most humble objects, makes all around us resplendent and, if we refuse to see it, we are blinded by an unjust prejudice, or our minds are not open to the faculty of contemplation. “It is revealed above all to those who cultivate common sense and reject the sophistries of untruth that they may surround themselves with truth. “Such people scorn trivial casualties; they adopt an immutable rule, reasoning, which permits them to deduce, to judge, and afterward to produce. “All beautiful creations are derived from this source. “The most admirable inventions would never have been known if common sense had not helped them to be produced, strengthening those who conceived them by the support of logic, which demonstrated to them the truth of their presumptions. “Authority follows, based on the experience which, by maintaining the effect of judgment, has armed them with the strength of the mind, the true glory of peaceful conquerors.” Would one not say that the Shogun, in writing these lines, foresaw the magnificent efforts which we are witnessing each day and that from the depths of time he caught a glimpse of these brave conquerors of the air and of space, whose great deeds, seeming at times the result of a crazy temerity, are in reality only homage rendered to common sense, which has permitted them to calculate the value of their initiative without mistake? And one can not be denied the pleasure of entering once more into close communion of thought with the old philosopher when he says: “Enthusiasm is of crystal but common sense is of brass.” END