ve mistaken
a prejudice for an instinct, or have confounded a false and partial
impression with the fair and unavoidable inference from general
observation. Mr. Burke said that we ought not to reject every prejudice,
but should separate the husk of prejudice from the truth it encloses,
and so try to get at the kernel within; and thus far he was right. But
he was wrong in insisting that we are to cherish our prejudices 'because
they are prejudices': for if all are well founded, there is no occasion
to inquire into their origin or use; and he who sets out to philosophise
upon them, or make the separation Mr. Burke talks of in this spirit
and with this previous determination, will be very likely to mistake
a maggot or a rotten canker for the precious kernel of truth, as was
indeed the case with our Political sophist.

There is nothing more distinct than common sense and vulgar opinion.
Common sense is only a judge of things that fall under common
observation, or immediately come home to the business and bosoms of men.
This is of the very essence of its principle, the basis of its
pretensions. It rests upon the simple process of feeling,--it anchors
in experience. It is not, nor it cannot be, the test of abstract,
speculative opinions. But half the opinions and prejudices of mankind,
those which they hold in the most unqualified approbation and which
have been instilled into them under the strongest sanctions, are of this
latter kind, that is, opinions not which they have ever thought, known,
or felt one tittle about, but which they have taken up on trust from
others, which have been palmed on their understandings by fraud or
force, and which they continue to hold at the peril of life, limb,
property, and character, with as little warrant from common sense in the
first instance as appeal to reason in the last. The _ultima ratio regum_
proceeds upon a very different plea. Common sense is neither priestcraft
nor state-policy. Yet 'there's the rub that makes absurdity of so long
life,' and, at the same time, gives the sceptical philosophers the
advantage over us. Till nature has fair play allowed it, and is not
adulterated by political and polemical quacks (as it so often has been),
it is impossible to appeal to it as a defence against the errors and
extravagances of mere reason. If we talk of common sense, we are twitted
with vulgar prejudice, and asked how we distinguish the one from the
other; but common and received opinio