"The New Zealander prides himself on his common sense"

"The New Zealander prides himself on his common sense—that 'settled truth can be attained by observation'[10] and is 'knowable and graspable by our own experience.'[11]

"For the most part this is held so assuredly that 'to reason against the [evidence of sense and memory] is absurd'; these are held as 'first principles, and as such fall not within the province of reason, but of common sense.' [12]

"This was the argument of the enlightened Scotsman Thomas Reid, whose 'last phrase stuck' and came to New Zealand with Scottish settlers. 'It helped to produce a cultural type that some consider typically American, but which is just as much Scottish' and equally applies here: 'an independent intellect combined with an assertive self-respect, and grounded by a strong sense of moral purpose.'[13]

“'The teachings of these Scots became known as the philosophy of Common Sense: it was the real basis of the Scottish Enlightenment,'[14] and probably our own."

~ yours truly from my post on that other blog 'New Zealand: A Nation of the Enlightenment'

[10] McCosh, J. (1875). The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutchinson to Hamilton. London: MacMillan & Co, 194

[11] Herman, A. (2001). How the Scots Invented the Modern World. New York: Three Rivers Press, 262

[12] Reid, T. (1823). An Inquiry into the Human Mind: On the Principles of Common Sense. London: Thomas Tegg, Cheapside, 28; Herman, 2001, ibid, 262

[13] Herman, 2001, ibid, 263-4
[14] Fry, M. (2025). How the Scots Made America. New York: Macmillan