Common sense（美国名著doc版）
Common Senseby Thomas Paine
INTRODUCTION
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages,
are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour;
a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial
appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry
in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides.
Time makes more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means
of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which
might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated
into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken
in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS,
and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed
by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into
the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.
In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every
thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as
censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy,
need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments
are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless
too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.
Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal,
and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected,
and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested.
The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War
against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating
the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern
of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling;
of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR.
P.S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed,
with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary)
of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance:
As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will,
the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public
being considerably past.
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public,
as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may
not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no
sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.
Philadelphia, February 14, 1776
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