Martindale v. Falkner (1846), 2 C. B. 720, and characterised by Blackburn, J., in The Queen v. Mayor of Tewkesbury, L. R. 3 Q. B. 629.
“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.”
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
Rien n'est plus contraire à la religion et au clergé qu'une tête sensée et raisonnable. — Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, Théologie portative, ou Dictionnaire abrégé de la religion chrétienne (1768): Folie
Misattributed
William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher
Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VI : Presumptive Rights, § 24, p. 63.
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: It would seem that common sense and reason ought to find a way to reach agreement in every conflict of honest interests. I myself think it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace-party and the war-party together, and I believe that the difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of pacifism which set the military imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. In the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. It is but one utopia against another, and everything one says must be abstract and hypothetical.
William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher
Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VI : Presumptive Rights, § 24, p. 62.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
1 March 1834.
Table Talk (1821–1834)
Context: I am by the law of my nature a reasoner. A person who should suppose I meant by that word, an arguer, would not only not understand me, but would understand the contrary of my meaning. I can take no interest whatever in hearing or saying any thing merely as a fact — merely as having happened. It must refer to something within me before I can regard it with any curiosity or care. My mind is always energic — I don't mean energetic; I require in every thing what, for lack of another word, I may call propriety, — that is, a reason why the thing is at all, and why it is there or then rather than elsewhere or at another time.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology
Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge
The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, or, A Commentary on Littleton (London, 1628, ed. F. Hargrave and C. Butler, 19th ed., London, 1832), Third Institute. Compare: "Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason", Sir John Powell, Coggs vs. Bernard, 2 Ld. Raym. Rep. p. 911.
Institutes of the Laws of England
“That seems to us to be the common sense of the matter; and common sense often makes good law.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Writing for the court, Peak v. United States, 353 U.S. 43 (1957)
Judicial opinions
“They’re so dedicated to logic and reason that common sense hasn’t got much to do with it.”
John Barnes book A Million Open Doors
A Million Open Doors (1992)
Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian
Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.106 (Augustine: The City of God. 21:8)
