defined as the immediate or instinctive response that is given (in
psychological language) by the automatic action of the mind, or (in
physiological language) by the reflex-action of the brain to any
question which can be answered by such a direct appeal. The nature and
value of that response will depend upon the acquired condition of the
mind, or of the brain, at the time it is given; that condition being the
general resultant of the whole psychical activity of the individual. The
particular form of that activity is determined, as we have seen, in the
first place, by his original constitution; secondly, by the influences
which have been early brought to bear upon it from without; and thirdly,
by his own power of self-direction. And it may be said that while the
elementary form of common sense depends mainly upon the first of these
factors, its ordinary form chiefly arises out of the first and second,
and its special forms almost exclusively out of the third;--the response
being given, in each case, by a nervous mechanism, in the organization
of which the generalized results of the past experiences of
consciousness (whether of the race or of the individual) have become
embodied.
The parallel between the cerebral action which furnishes the mechanism
of thought now under consideration, and the action of the sensori-motor
apparatus which furnishes the mechanism of sense and motion, is
extremely close. We have seen that there are certain sense-perceptions,
which, although not absolutely intuitive, very early come to possess--in
every normally constituted human being--the immediateness and perfection
of those corresponding perceptions which are intuitive in the lower
animals; and that with these are associated certain respondent motions,
which, though acquired by practice in the first instance, ultimately
come to be performed as by a second nature. Certain of these motions,
such as walking erect, are universally acquired; and thus obviously come
to be the expressions of the original endowments of the mechanism,
trained by an experience very similar in the uniformity of its character
to that which educates the elementary form of common sense. For it must
be clear to any one who compares the erect progression of a child who
has just learned to walk, with that of a dancing dog or even of a
chimpanzee, that while experience makes its acquirement possible in each
case, only an organism which is at the same time structurally adapted
for erect progression and possessed of a special co-ordinating faculty,
can turn such experience to full account. The balancing the body in the
erect position at starting, the maintenance of that balance by a new
adjustment of the centre of gravity as the base of support is shifted
from side to side and from behind forwards, and the alternate lifting
and advance of the legs, involve the harmonious co-operation of almost
all the muscles in the body. Although this co-operation is brought about
in the first instance by the purposive direction of our efforts towards
a given end, under the guidance of our visual and muscular sensations,
yet when we have once learned to walk erect, we find ourselves able to
maintain our balance without any exertion of which we are conscious; all
that is necessary for the performance of this movement being that a
certain stimulus (volitional, or some other) shall call the mechanism
into activity.--But further, we have seen that special powers of
sense-perception can be acquired by the habitual direction of the
attention to particular classes of objects; and that special movements
come to be the secondarily automatic expression of them. How nearly
related these are to the preceding, we may assure ourselves by attending
to the process by which an adult learns to walk on a narrow base, such
as a rope or the edge of a plank. For the co-ordinating action has here
to be gone through afresh under altered and more special conditions, so
as to give a greater development to the balancing power; yet when this
has been fully acquired, it is exerted automatically with such an
immediateness and perfection, that a Blondin can cross Niagara on his
rope with no more danger of falling into the torrent beneath, than any
ordinary man would experience if walking without side-rails along the
broad platform of the suspension bridge which spans it. Now since in
those cases in which man acquires powers that are original or intuitive
in the lower animals, there is the strongest reason for believing that a
mechanism forms itself in him which is equivalent to that congenitally
possessed by them, we seem fully justified in the belief that in those
more special forms of activity which are the result of prolonged
training, the sensori-motor apparatus grows to the mode in which it is
habitually exercised, so as to become fit for the immediate execution of
the mandate it receives: it being often found to act not only without
intelligent direction, but without any consciousness of exertion, in
immediate response to some particular kind of stimulus,--just as an
automaton that executes one motion when a certain spring is touched,
will execute a very different one when set going in some other way.
There is strong analogical ground, then, for the belief that the higher
part of the nervous mechanism which is concerned in psychical action,
will follow the same law; embodying the generalized result of its
experiences, so as to become able to evolve, by a direct response, a
result of which the attainment originally required the intervention of
the conscious mind at several intermediate stages of the process. What
there is strong ground for believing in regard to the perceptional
consciousness, may fairly be extended to the ideational, which is so
intimately connected to it, the unconscious co-ordinating action, which
in the former case brings the whole experience to bear upon the
question, whilst the decisions of the latter are based upon a limited,
and therefore one-sided, view of it,--the defect of judgment being due
either to an original want of the co-ordinating power, or to disuse of
the exercise of it through the limitation of the attention to special
fields of study. It may often be noticed that children display a power
of bringing common sense to bear upon the ordinary affairs of life,
which seems much beyond that of their elders; and yet a very sensible
child will often grow into a much less sensible man. Now the reason of
this seems to be, that the child perceives the application of
self-evident considerations to the case at issue, without being
embarrassed by a number of other considerations (perhaps of a trivial or
conventional nature) which distract the attention and unduly influence
the judgment of the adult. And the deliverances of a child's common
sense thus often resemble those of the old court fools, or jesters,
whose function seems to have been to speak out home truths which timid
courtiers would not venture to utter. Moreover, as has been well
remarked, "it is quite possible for minds of limited power to manage a
small range of experience much better than a large, to get confused (as
it were) with resources on too great a scale, and therefore to show far
more common sense within the comparatively limited field of childish
experience, than in the greater world of society or public life. This is
probably the explanation of a thing often seen,--how very sagacious
people instinctively shrink from a field which their tact tells them is
too large for them to manage, and keep to one where they are really
supreme."
Now, in so far as our conscious mental activity is under the direction
of our will, we can improve this form of common sense, as to both its
range and the trustworthiness of its judgments, by appropriate training.
Such training, as regards the purely intellectual aspect of common
sense, will consist in the determinate culture of the habit of honestly
seeking for truth,--dismissing prejudice, setting aside self-interest,
searching out all that can be urged on each side of the question at
issue, endeavouring to assign to every fact and argument its real value,
and then weighing the two aggregates against each other with judicial
impartiality. For in proportion to the steadiness with which this course
is volitionally pursued, must be its effectiveness in shaping the
mechanism whose automatic action constitutes the unconscious thinking,
of which the results express themselves in our common-sense judgments.
The ordinary common sense of mankind, disciplined and enlarged by an
appropriate culture, becomes one of the most valuable instruments of
scientific inquiry; affording in many instances the best and sometimes
the only basis for a rational conclusion. A typical case, in which no
special knowledge is required, is afforded by the flint implements of
the Abbeville and Amiens gravel beds. No logical proof can be adduced
that the peculiar shapes of these flints were given to them by human
hands; but no unprejudiced person who has examined them now doubts it.
The evidence of design to which, after an examination of one or two such
specimens, we should only be justified in attaching a probable value,
derives an irresistible cogency from accumulation. On the other hand,
the improbability that these flints acquired their peculiar shape by
accident, becomes to our minds greater and greater as more and more such
specimens are found; until at last this hypothesis, although it cannot
be directly disproved, is felt to be almost inconceivable, except by
minds previously possessed by the dominant idea of the modern origin of
man. And thus what was in the first instance a matter of discussion, has
now become one of those self-evident propositions, which claim the
unhesitating assent of all whose opinion on the subject is entitled to
the least weight.
We proceed upwards, however, from such questions as the common sense of
mankind generally is competent to decide, to those in which special
knowledge is required to give value to the judgment; and here we must
distinguish between those departments of inquiry in which scientific
conclusions are arrived at by a process of strict reasoning, and those
in which they partake of the nature of common sense judgments.
Of the former class we have a typical example in mathematics, and in
those exact sciences which make use of mathematics as their instrument
of proof; but even in these, it is common sense which affords not only
the basis, but the materials of the fabric. For while the axioms of
geometry are self-evident truths which not only do not require proof,
but are not capable of being proved in all their universality, every
step of a demonstration is an assertion of which our acceptance depends
on our incapability of conceiving either the contrary or anything else
than the thing asserted. And thus the certain assurance of the proof
felt by every person capable of understanding a mathematical
demonstration, depends upon the conclusive self-evidence of each step of
it. But we not unfrequently meet with individuals, not deficient in
ordinary common sense, who cannot be brought to see this self-evidence;
whilst, on the other hand, the advanced mathematician, when adventuring
into new paths of inquiry, is able to take a great deal for granted as
self-evident, which at an earlier stage of his researches would not
have so presented itself to his mind. The deliverances of this acquired
intuition can in most cases be readily justified by the reasoning
process which they have anticipated. But the genius of a
mathematician--that is, his special aptitude developed by special
culture--will occasionally enable him to divine a truth, of which,
though he may be able to prove it experientially, neither he nor any
other can at the time furnish a logical demonstration. In this divining
power we have clear evidence of the existence of a capacity which cannot
be accounted for by the mere co-ordination of antecedent experiences,
whether of the individual or of the race; and yet, as already shown,
such co-ordination has furnished the stimulus to its development.
Of those departments of science, on the other hand, in which our
conclusions rest (like those of ordinary common sense) not on any one
set of experiences, but upon our unconscious co-ordination of the whole
aggregate of our experiences,--not on the conclusiveness of any one
train of reasoning, but on the convergence of all our lines of thought
towards one centre,--geology may be taken as a typical example. For this
inquiry brings (as it were) into one focus, the light afforded by a
great variety of studies,--physical and chemical, geographical and
biological; and throws it on the pages of that great stone book in which
the past history of our globe is recorded. And its real progress dates
from the time when that common sense method of interpretation came to
be generally adopted, which consists in seeking the explanation of past
changes in the forces at present in operation, instead of invoking (as
the older geologists were wont to do) the aid of extraordinary and
mysterious agencies.
Of the adequacy of common sense to arrive at a decisive judgment under
the guidance of the convergence just indicated, we have a good example
in the following occurrence:--A man having had his pocket picked of a
purse, and the suspected thief having been taken with a purse upon him,
the loser was asked if he could swear to it as his property. This he
could not do; but as he was able to name not only the precise sum which
the purse contained, but also the pieces of money of which that sum
consisted, the jury unhesitatingly assigned to him the ownership of the
purse and its contents. A mathematician could have calculated, from the
number of coins, what were the chances against the correctness of a mere
guess; but no such calculation could have added to the assurance
afforded by common sense, that the man who could tell not only the
number of coins in the purse, but the value of each one of them, must
have been its possessor.
Familiar instances of the like formation of a basis of judgment by the
unconscious co-ordination of experiences, will be found in many
occurrences of daily life; in which the effect of special training
manifests itself in the formation of decisions, that are not the less
to be trusted because they do not rest on assignable reasons:--Thus, a
literary man, who has acquired by culture the art of writing correctly
and forcibly, without having ever formally studied either grammar, the
logical analysis of sentences, or the artifices of rhetoric, will
continually feel in criticizing his own writings or those of others,
that there is something faulty in style or construction, and may be able
to furnish the required correction, whilst altogether unable to say in
what the passage is wrong, or why his amendment sets it right. Or, to
pass into an entirely different sphere, a practised detective will often
arrive, by a sort of divination, at a conviction of the guilt or
innocence of a suspected person, which ultimately turns out to be
correct; and yet he could not convey to another any adequate reasons for
his assurance, which depends upon the impression made upon his mind by
minute details of look, tone, gesture, or manner, which have little or
no significance to ordinary observers, but which his specially cultured
common sense instinctively apprehends.
But in the ordinary affairs of life, our common sense judgments are so
largely influenced by the emotional part of our nature--our individual
likes and dislikes, the predominance of our selfish or of our benevolent
affections, and so on,--that their value will still more essentially
depend upon the earnestness and persistency of our self-direction
towards the right.[4] The more faithfully, strictly, and perseveringly
we try to disentangle ourselves from all selfish aims, all conscious
prejudices, the more shall we find ourselves progressively emancipated
from those unconscious prejudices, which cling around us as results of
early misdirection and habits of thought and which (having become
embodied in our organization) are more dangerous than those against
which we knowingly put ourselves on guard. And so, in proportion to the
degree in which we habituate ourselves to try every question by first
principles, rather than by the supposed dictates of a temporary
expediency, will the mechanism of our unconscious thinking form itself
in accordance with those principles, so often as to evolve results which
satisfy both ourselves and others with their self-evident truthfulness
and rectitude. It has been well remarked by a man of large experience
of human nature and action, that the habitual determination to do the
right thing, marvellously clears the judgment as to matters purely
intellectual or prudential, having in themselves no moral bearing.
Of this we have a good illustration in the advice which an eminent and
experienced judge (the story is told of Lord Mansfield) is said to have
given to a younger friend, newly appointed to a colonial
judgeship:--"Never give reasons for your decisions; your judgments will
very probably be right, but your reasons will almost certainly be
wrong." The meaning of this may be taken to be:--"Your legal instinct,
or specially trained common sense, based on your general knowledge of
law, guided by your honesty of intention, will very probably lead you to
correct conclusions; but your knowledge of the technicalities of law is
not sufficient to enable you to give reasons for these conclusions,
which shall bear the test of hostile scrutiny."
But further, in any of those complicated questions that are pretty sure
to come before us all at some time or other in our lives,--as to which
there is a great deal to be said on both sides; in which it is difficult
to say what is prudent and even what is right; in which it is not duty
and inclination that are at issue, but one set of duties and
inclinations at issue with another,--experience justifies the conclusion
to which science seems to point, that the habitually well-regulated mind
forms its surest judgment by trusting to the automatic guidance of its
common sense; just as a rider who has lost his road is more likely to
find his way home by dropping the reins on his horse's neck, than by
continuing to jerk them to this side or that in the vain search for it.
For continued argument and discussion, in which the feelings are excited
on one side, provoke antagonistic feelings on the other; and no true
balance can be struck until all these adventitious influences have
ceased to operate. When all the considerations which ought to be taken
into the account have been once brought fully before the mind, it is far
better to leave them to arrange themselves, by turning the conscious
activity of the mind into some other direction, or by giving it a
complete repose. If adequate time be given for this unconscious
co-ordination, which is especially necessary when the feelings have been
strongly and deeply moved, we find, when we bring the question again
under consideration, that the direction in which the mind gravitates is
a safer guide than any judgment formed when we are fresh from its
discussion.
Not only may the range and value of such common sense judgments be
increased by appropriate culture in the individual, for, of all parts of
our higher nature, the aptitude for forming them is probably that which
is most capable of being transmitted hereditarily; so that the
descendant of a well-educated ancestry constitutionally possesses in it
much higher measure than the progeny of any savage race. And it seems
to be in virtue of this automatic co-ordination of the elements of
judgment, rather than of any process of conscious ratiocination, that
the race, like the individual, emancipates itself from early prejudices,
gets rid of worn-out beliefs, and learns to look at things as they are,
rather than as they have been traditionally represented. This is what is
really expressed by the progress of rationalism. For although that
progress undoubtedly depends in great part upon the more general
diffusion of knowledge and the higher culture of those intellectual
powers which are exercised in the acquirement of it, yet this alone
would be of little avail, if the self-discipline thus exerted did not
act downwards in improving the mechanism that evolves the self-evident
material of our reasoning processes, as well as upwards in more highly
elaborating their product. If we examine, for instance, the history of
the decline of the belief in witchcraft, we find that it was not killed
by discussion, but perished of neglect. The common sense of the best
part of mankind has come to be ashamed of ever having put any faith in
things whose absurdity now appears self-evident; no discussion of
evidence once regarded as convincing is any longer needed; and it is
only among those of our hereditarily uneducated population, whose
general intelligence is about on a par with that of a Hottentot or an
Esquimaux, that we any longer find such faith entertained.
There is, in fact, a sort of under-current, not of actually formed
opinion, but of tendency to the formation of opinions, in certain
directions, which bursts every now and then to the surface; exhibiting a
latent preparedness in the public mind to look at great questions in a
new point of view, which leads to most striking results when adequately
guided. That "the hour is come--and the man" is what history
continually reproduces; neither can do anything effectively without the
other. But a great idea thrown out by a mind in advance of its age,
takes root and germinates in secret, shapes the unconscious thought of a
few individuals of the next generation, is by them diffused still more
widely, and thus silently matures itself in the womb of time, until it
comes forth, like Minerva, in full panoply of power.
Those who are able to look back with intelligent retrospect over the
political history of the last half-century and who witness the now
general pervasion of the public mind by truths which it accepts as
self-evident, and by moral principles which it regards as beyond
dispute, can scarcely realize to themselves the fact that within their
own recollection the fearless assertors of those truths and principles
were scoffed at as visionaries or reviled as destructives. And those
whose experience is limited to a more recent period, must see, in the
rapid development of public opinion on subjects of the highest
importance, the evidence of a previous unconscious preparedness, which
may be believed to consist mainly in the higher development and more
general diffusion of that automatic co-ordinating power, which
constitutes the essence of reason as distinct from reasoning.
Thus, then, every course of intellectual and moral self-discipline,
steadily and honestly pursued, tends not merely to clear the mental
vision of the individual, but to ennoble the race; by helping to develop
that intuitive power, which arises in the first instance from the
embodiment in the human constitution of the general resultants of
antecedent experience, but which, in its highest form, far transcends
the experience that has furnished the materials for its evolution,--just
as the creative power of imagination shapes out conceptions which no
merely constructive skill could devise.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Note by Editor. Sir Henry Taylor in "The Statesman" says:--
"If there be in the character not only sense and soundness, but virtue
of a high order, then, however little appearance there may be of talent,
a certain portion of wisdom may be relied upon almost implicitly. For
the correspondencies of wisdom and goodness are manifold; and that they
will accompany each other is to be inferred, not only because men's
wisdom makes them good, but also because their goodness makes them wise.
Questions of right and wrong are a perpetual exercise of the faculties
of those who are solicitous as to the right and wrong of what they do
and see; and a deep interest of the heart in these questions carries
with it a deeper cultivation of the understanding than can be easily
effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity."
A LIBERAL EDUCATION
PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY
[In 1868 Professor Huxley delivered an address to the South
London Workingmen's College, part of which follows. The
address appears in full in the third volume of the author's
essays, published by D. Appleton & Co., New York.]
What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thoroughly
liberal education?--of that education which, if we could begin life
again, we would give ourselves--of that education which, if we could
mould the fates to our own will, we would give our children? Well, I
know not what may be your conceptions upon this matter, but I will tell
you mine, and I hope I shall find that our views are not very
discrepant.