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Common sense is always
the product of the evolution of consciousness.
"The common sense of today1
is not something that is valid for all time, but something that has evolved
from a common sense that was qualitatively different from it" (HGH
47-48).
"This world of outsides
with insides to them, which we perceive around us and in which we dwell,"
Barfield insisted for over sixty years, "is not something unshakably and
unalterably given, but is largely the product of the way we collectively
and unconsciously think. It is correlative to our mental habit" (HGH
71).
See in particular,
"Modern Idolatry: The Sin of Literalness," History, Guilt and
Habit, Chap. 2 and Saving the Appearances, Chaps. IX and X. |
1For
Barfield, modern common sense entails (simply put) "becoming blind to one
half of reality, while retaining the other. It has come to accept and value
the outer for its own sake only and not as the manifestation or garb of
another and immaterial component. Reality is assumed to consist of things,
not of images" (HGH 48). |
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