and every body would feel that it was unpleasant to see a building look exactly as if it were going to fall down.  Now, what I have called common sense is, in a manner, the instinct of our reason:  it is that uniform level of reason which all sane persons reach to, and the wisest in matters within its province do not surpass.  But go beyond this, and architecture is no longer a matter of mere common sense, but of science, and of cultivated taste.  Here the standard of beauty is not fixed by common consent; but, in the first instance, devised or discovered by the few:  and, so far as it is received by the many, received by them on the authority of the few, and sanctioned, so to speak, not so much from real sympathy and understanding, as from a reasonable trust and deference to those who are believed the best judges.

Here, then, we suppose that the common judgment is right; but we perceive a difference between this case and the one mentioned before, inasmuch as in the first instance the right judgment of the mass of mankind is their own; in the second instance, they have adopted it out of deference to others.  Not only, then, will men’s common judgment be right in matters of instinct and of common sense, but also in higher matters, where, although they could not have discovered what was right, yet they were perfectly willing to adopt it, when discovered by others.  And this opens a very wide field.  For in all matters which come under the dominion of fashion, where the avowed object is the convenience or gratification of society, men listen to those who profess to teach them with almost an excess of docility:  they will adopt sometimes fashions which are not convenient.  But yet, as men can tell well enough by experience whether they do find a thing convenient and agreeable or not, so it is most likely that fashions which continue long and generally prevalent are founded upon sound principles; because else men, being well capable of knowing what convenience is, and being also well disposed to follow it, would neither have been very long or very generally mistaken in this matter; nor would have acquiesced in their mistake contentedly.

We do perfectly right, then, to regard the common opinion as a rule in all points of dress, in our houses and furniture, in those lighter usages of society which come under the denomination of manners, as distinguished from morals.  In all these, if the mass of mankind could not find out what would best suit them, yet they are quite ready to adopt it when it is found out; and so they equally arrive at truth.  But take away this readiness, and the whole case is altered.  If there be any point in which men are not ready to adopt what is best for them; if they are either indifferent, or still more, if they are averse to it; if they thus have neither the power of discovering it for themselves, nor the will to avail themselves of it, when discovered for them; then it is clear that, in such a point, the common judgment will be of no value, nay, there will even be a presumption that it is wrong.