three-quarters of Switzerland, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, from
the Roman communion? Poverty. Indulgences and deliverance from purgatory
were sold too dear to souls whose bodies had at that time very little
money. The prelates, the monks devoured a province's whole revenue.
People took a cheaper religion. At last, after twenty civil wars,
people believed that the Pope's religion was very good for great lords,
and the reformed religion for citizens. Time will show whether the Greek
religion or the Turkish religion will prevail by the Ægean Sea and the
Pont-Euxine.




_COMMON SENSE_


There are sometimes in common expressions an image of what passes in the
depths of all men's hearts. Among the Romans _sensus communis_ signified
not only common sense, but humanity, sensibility. As we are not as good
as the Romans, this word signifies among us only half of what it
signified among them. It means only good sense, plain reason, reason set
in operation, a first notion of ordinary things, a state midway between
stupidity and intelligence. "This man has no common sense" is a great
insult. "A common-sense man" is an insult likewise; it means that he is
not entirely stupid, and that he lacks what is called wit and
understanding. But whence comes this expression _common sense_, unless
it be from the senses? Men, when they invented this word, avowed that
nothing entered the soul save through the senses; otherwise, would they
have used the word _sense_ to signify common reasoning?