The Development of the Reasoning Power : Part 1

Common Sense, How to Exercise It
by Blanchard Yoritomo-Tashi

(Page 3 of 14)

When reading certain passages in the manuscripts of Yoritomo, one is forcibly reminded of the familiar phrase: "Nothing is definitely finished among men, for each thing stops only to begin again."

He says, "That many centuries before the great minds constructed altars to the goddess of Reason, they were in search of a divinity to replace the one they had just destroyed.

"If it were proposed to me to build temples which would synthesize my devotion with certain sentiments, my desire would be that those dedicated to the Will and to Reason should dominate all others, for then they would be under the protection of powers for good."

In a few pages further on he insists again and again upon the necessity of developing the worship of reason.

"Reasoning," he continues, "is a divinity, around which gravitate a whole world of gods, important but inferior to it.

"Among this people of these idols, so justly revered, there is one god which occupies a place apart from the others.

"This god is Common Sense, which gave birth to Reason, and has always been its faithful companion.

"It is, in reality, the controlling force exercising its power to guard reason against the predominating character and nefarious tendencies created by self-interest.

"Common sense compels reason to admit principles whose justice it has already recognized, and, at the same time, incites reason to reject those whose absurdity it has demonstrated.

"Common sense allies itself with reason, in order to make that selection of ideas which personal interest can either set aside entirely or modify by illogical inference.

"Reason obeys certain laws, all of which can be united in one sentiment - common sense."

This statement could be illustrated symbolically by comparing its truth to a fan, whose blades converge toward a central point where they remain fixt.

Applying the precept to the picture, the old Shogun gives the design which we are faithfully copying.

"In this ideal fan," explains Yoritomo, "not only the true reproduction of the qualities directing the progress of knowledge must be perceived, but the symbol of their development must be traced.

"All of these qualities are born of common sense, to which they are closely allied, unfolding and disclosing a luminous radiance.

"Altho each one may have its autonomy, they never separate, and, even as a fan from which one blade has disappeared can only remain an imperfect object little to be desired, even so, the symbolic fan of reasoning, when it does not unite all the required qualities, becomes a mutilated power, which can only betray the destiny originally attributed to it.

"Consequently, starting from common sense as the central point of reasoning, we find, first, perception.

"This is the action by which exterior things are brought near to us.

"Perception is essentially visual and auditory, altho it influences all our senses.

"For example, the fact of tasting a fruit is a perception.

"The seeing of a landscape is equally one.

"The hearing of a song is also a perception.

"In a word, everything which presents itself to us, coming in contact with one of our senses, is a perception; otherwise, the inception of an idea.

"This is the first degree of reasoning.

"Immediately following is memory, without which nothing could be proved.

"It is memory, which, by renewing the motive power of reason, allows us to judge of the proportion of things, grasped by the senses in the present as related to those which come to us from the past.

"Without memory it would be impossible to make a mental comparison.

"It would be most difficult to determine the true nature of an event, announced by perception, if an analogous sensation, previously experienced, had not just permitted us to classify it by close examination or by differentiating it.

"Memory is a partial resurrection of a past life, whose reconstruction has just permitted us to attribute a true value to the phases of existence.

"It is in preserving the memory of things that we are called upon to compare them and then to judge of them.

"Thought is produced immediately after perception, and the recollection, very often automatic, that it creates within us.

"It is the inception of the idea which it engenders by a series of results.

"Thought permits the mind to exercise its judgment without allowing itself to be influenced by the greatness or humility of the idea.

"By virtue of corresponding recollections, it will associate the present perception with the past representations, and will take an extension, more or less pronounced, according to the degree of intellectuality of the thinker, and according to the importance of the object of its reflections.

"But rarely does the idea present itself alone.