Part 17 (1/2)
There is direction of resolutions as well as direction of a journey; it is necessary, from the beginning, to consider well the choice of a good route, after having done everything possible to discriminate carefully between it and all other routes proposed.
It happens, however, that the way leads also through the cross-roads; it is even indispensable to leave the short cuts in order to trace the outline of the obstacles.
Direction is, then, an important factor in the acquiring of common sense.
The putting of the question takes its character from comparison, from experience, and princ.i.p.ally from approximation; but it is in itself a synthesis of all the elements which compose common sense.
He who wishes to acquire common sense should be impregnated with all that has preceded.
Then he will discipline himself, so as to be able to judge, by himself, of the degree of reason which he has the right to a.s.sume.
He will begin by evoking some subject, comparing its visual forms with, those forms which he understands the best, in other words, to the perceptions which are the most familiar to him.
If it concerns a question to be solved, he will try to recall some similar subject, and establish harmony, by making them both relative to a common antecedent.
Yoritomo advises choosing simple thoughts for the beginning.
”One will say, for example:
”Such a substance is a poison; the seeds of this fruit contain a weak dose of it; these seeds could then become a dangerous food, if one absorbed a considerable quant.i.ty.
”Common sense will thus indicate a certain abstaining from eating of it.
”Then one may extend his argument to things of a greater importance, but taking great care to keep within the narrow limits of rudimentary logic.
”One must be impregnated with this principle:
”Two things equal to a third demand an affirmative judgment or decision.
”In the opposite case the negative deduction is enjoined.
”It is by deductions from the most ordinary facts that one succeeds in making common sense intervene automatically in all our judgments.
”What would be thought of one who, finding himself in a forest at the time of a violent storm, would reason as follows:
”First: The high summits attract lightning.
”Secondly: Here is a giant tree.
”Thirdly: I'm going to take refuge there.
”Then it is that common sense demands that the state his three propositions as follows:
”First: High summits attract lightning.
”Secondly: Here is a giant tree.
”Thirdly: I'm going to avoid its proximity because it will surely be dangerous.
”If he acted otherwise; if, in spite of his knowledge of the danger, he took shelter under the branches of the gigantic tree, exposing himself to be struck by lightning, one could, in this case, only reproach him with imprudence and lay the blame to the lack of common sense which allowed him to perform the act that logic condemned.”