Life — December 22, 1910 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~-LIVE= CHRISTMAS EVE Chorus: PATHER, WERE’S MORE STOCKINGS TO HANG UP. Common Sense EFORE we can discuss this matter intelligently two ques- tions must be answered: (1) Is common sense common? and (2) Is common sense sense? If our census enumerators had asked every man and woman, “Have you common sense?'? we would have dis- covered that common sense was not only common, but uni- versal, for everyone would have answered yes. But if they had asked, “Has your neighbor common sense?" we would have found that very little common sense exists, that it was really the exclusive, private-keep-out property of the few. That is to say, no matter how wise any of us may become, no matter how much uncommon sense we may accumulate, we always like to think it is built on a broad basis of common On the other band, if we want to be particularly bit- n criticizing our neighbor, we say he lacks common sense, aning usually that he is out of the insane asylum only be- cause it is too much trouble to put him in. Assuming, however, that common sense is really common, is it, therefore, necessarily sense; something to be proud of and to brag about? Just because a vast number of people do a thing a cert , does that make the way sensible? Probably not. On the contrary, when a large number of people have reached the conclusion that a certain way is good, the chances are that some enterprising chap with uncommon sense has discovered a better way and only hesitates to speak of it because common sense is so haughty and so conservative and so intolerant In other words, common sense is often anti- quated good sense, good sense that has become nonsense through the ravages of time and progress. Common sense, therefore, is responsible for two kinds of fools: those who think a sense is sensible because it is com- mon, and those who think that anything uncommon is non- sense. Another Step Toward Millennium HOSE who believed we had reached the final stage in mental development when New Thought came on the scene were doomed to quick and decisive disappointment. We may admit, of course, that to reach New Thought from the days of Demosthenes and Cicero and Plato and Pericles was to come a very long way, but it was not to be all. Evolution never stops, There is now in New York, and possibly else- where, a church devoted to Advanced New Thought. And why not? Why shouldn't New Thought advance just the same as any other kind of thought? For that matter, why should not even Advanced New Thought advance until we have, say, Progressive Advanced New Thought, and then perhaps Re- formed Progressive Advanced New Thought and then New Reformed Progressive Advanced New Thought, and so on ad lib? A Good Phrase Misapplied OW entirely and scandalously the phrase muck-raking has been twisted out of its proper signification! The true muck-rakers, as Bunyan saw them, were the men blindly bent on money-getting, whom it is the office of the misnamed con- temporary “ muck-rakers" to attack. Bunyan’s man with the muck-rake raked muck because it was rich, What our “ muck- " rake is mud, and they rake it because it is foul. HE trouble with Santa Claus is that he is too much a re- specter of persons. “wento, yack!” “ H-MOW-DO-YOU-DO-ER, BY JOVE, YOUR HAT IS VERY FAMIL- TAR, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE I CAN CALL YOUR NAME,