“It is the same with the qualities which we have just enumerated.  As long as they remain attached to their central point, which is common sense, they stand erect, beautiful and strong, concurring in the fertilization of our minds, and in creating peace in our lives.

“But if the point of contact ceases to maintain them, to bind them together, to forbid their separating, we shall soon see them fall apart after having escaped from the temporary protection of the secondary qualities.

“For a while we seek to evoke them; but recognizing the ruse existing in their commands, we shall soon be the first to abandon them, in order to harmonize our favors with the deceptive mirage of the illusions; at least, if we do not allow ourselves to be tempted by fallacious arguments of vanity.

“In the one as in the other case, we shall become, then, the prey of error and ignorance, for common sense is the intelligence of truth.”

LESSON IV

COMMON SENSE AND IMPULSE

Impulsive people are those who allow themselves to be guided by their initial impressions and make resolutions or commit acts tinder the domination of a special consciousness into which perception has plunged them.

Impulse is a form of cerebral activity which, forces us to make a movement before the mind is able to decide upon it by means of reflection or reasoning.  The Shogun deals with it at length and defines it thus: 

“Impulse is an almost direct contact between perception and result.

“Memory, thought, deduction, and, above all, reason are absolutely excluded from these acts, which are never inspired by intellectuality.

“The impression received by the brain is immediately transmuted into an act, similar to those acts which depend entirely on automatic memory.

“It is certain in making a series of movements, which compose the act of walking upstairs or the action of walking from one place to another, we do not think of analyzing our efforts and this act of walking almost limits itself to an organic function, so little does thought enter into its composition.

“In the case of repeated impulses, it can be absolutely affirmed that substance is the antecedent and postulate of the essence of being.

“Substance comprises all corporal materialities:  instinctive needs, irrational movements, in a word, all actions where common sense is not a factor.

“Essence is that imponderable part of being which includes the soul, the mind, the intelligence, in fact the entire mentality.

“It is this last element of our being which poetizes our thoughts, classifies them, and leads us to common sense, by means of reasoning and judgment.

“He who, having received an injury from his superior, replies to it at once by corresponding affront, is absolutely sure to become the victim of his impulses.