Common Sense, How To Exercise It | Page 6

ILLUSION
Common Sense such as we have just described it, according to Yoritomo, is the absolute antithesis of dreamy imagination, it is the sworn enemy of illusion, against which it struggles from the moment of contact.
Common sense is solid, illusion is yielding, also illusion never issues victorious from a combat with it; during a struggle illusion endeavors vainly to display its subterfuges and cunning; illusions disappear one by one, crusht by the powerful arms of their terrible adversary--common sense.
"The worship of illusion," says Yoritomo, "presents certain dangers to the integrity of judgment, which, under such influence, falsifies the comparative faculty, and sways decision to the side of neutrality.
"This kind of mental half-sleep is extremely detrimental to manifestations of reason, because this torpor excludes it from imaginary conceptions.
"Little by little the lethargy caused by this intellectual paralysis produces the effect of fluidic contagion over all our faculties.
"Energy, which ought to be the principle factor in our resolutions, becomes feeble and powerless at the point where we no longer care to feel its influence.
"The sentiment of effort exists no longer, since we are pleased to resolve all difficulties without it.
"In this inconstant state of mind, common sense, after wandering a moment withdraws itself, and we find that we are delivered over to all the perils of imagination.
"Nothing that we see thus confusedly is found on the plane which belongs to common sense; the ideas, associated by a capricious tie, bind and unbind themselves, without imposing the necessity of a solution.
"The man who allows himself to be influenced by vague dreams," adds the Shogun, "must, if he does not react powerfully, bid farewell to common sense and reason; for he will experience so great a charm in forgetting, even for one moment, the reality of life, that he will seek to prolong this blest moment.
"He will renounce logic, whose conclusions are, at times, opposed to his desires, and he will plunge himself into that false delight of awakened dreams, or, as some say, day-dreams.
"Those who defend this artificial conception of happiness, like to compare people of common sense to heavy infantry soldiers, who march along through stony roads, while they depict themselves as pleasant bird-fanciers, giving flight to the fantastic bearers of wings.
"But they do not take into account the fact that the birds, for whom they open the cage, fly away without the intention of returning, leaving them thus deceived and deprived of the birds, while the rough infantry soldiers, after many hardships, reach the desired end which they had proposed to attain, thus realizing the joys of conquest.
"There they find the rest and security, which the possessors of fugitive birds will never know.
"Those who cultivate common sense will always ignore the collapses which follow the disappearance of illusions.
"How many men have suffered thus uselessly!
"And what is more stupid than a sorrow, voluntarily imposed, when it can not be productive of any good?
"Men can not be too strongly warned against the tendency of embellishing everything that concerns the heart-life, and this is the inclination of most people.
"The causes of this propensity are many and the need for that which astounds is not the only cause to be mentioned.
"Indolence is never a stranger to illusion.
"It is so delightful to foresee a solution which conforms to our desires!
"For certain natures, stained with moral atrophy, it is far sweeter to hope for that which will be produced without pain.
"One begins by accelerating this achievement, so earnestly desired, by using all the will-power, and one becomes accustomed progressively to regard desires as a reality, and, aided by indolence, man discounts in advance an easy success.
"False enthusiasm, or rather enthusiasm without deliberate reflection, always enters into these illusions, which are accompanied by persuasion and never combatted by common sense.
"Vanity is never foreign to these false ideas, which are always of a nature to flatter one's amour propre.
"We love to rejoice beforehand in the triumph which we believe will win and, aided by mental frivolity, we do not wish to admit that success can be doubted.
"The dislike of making an effort, however, would quickly conceal, with its languishing voice, the wise words of common sense, if we would listen momentarily to them.
"And, lastly, it is necessary to consider credulity, to which, in our opinion, is accorded a place infinitely more honorable than it deserves."
And now the sage, Yoritomo, establishes the argument which, by the aid of common sense, characterized these opinions.
According to him, "It does not belong to new and vibrating souls, as many would have us believe.
"When credulity does not proceed from inveterate stupidity, it is always the result of apathy and weakness.
"Unhappiness and misfortune attend those who are voluntarily feeble.
"Their defect deprived them of the joy derived from happy efforts. They will be the prey of duplicity and untruth.
"They are the vanquished in life, and scarcely deserve