mon
Sense, which is the first work I ever did publish, and so far as I can
judge of myself, I believe I should never have been known in the world
as an author on any subject whatever, had it not been for the affairs
of America. I wrote Common Sense the latter end of the year 1775, and
published it the first of January, 1776. Independence was declared the
fourth of July following. [NOTE: The pamphlet Common Sense was first
advertised, as "just published," on January 10, 1776. His plea for the
Officers of Excise, written before leaving England, was printed, but not
published until 1793. Despite his reiterated assertion that Common Sense
was the first work he ever published the notion that he was "junius"
still finds some believers. An indirect comment on our Paine-Junians
may be found in Part 2 of this work where Paine says a man capable of
writing Homer "would not have thrown away his own fame by giving it to
another." It is probable that Paine ascribed the Letters of Junius to
Thomas Hollis. His friend F. Lanthenas, in his translation of the Age of
Reason (1794) advertises his translation of the Letters of Junius from
the English "(Thomas Hollis)." This he could hardly have done without
consultation with Paine. Unfortunately this translation of Junius cannot
be found either in the Bibliotheque Nationale or the British Museum, and
it cannot be said whether it contains any attempt at an identification
of Junius--Editor.]

Any person, who has made observations on the state and progress of the
human mind, by observing his own, can not but have observed, that there
are two distinct classes of what are called Thoughts; those that we
produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those
that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a
rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to
examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining; and it
is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have. As
to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves
only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning
for himself afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his own
teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct
quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their
place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so
lasting as when they begin by concepti