Common Sense

First published in 1916 and now freely available through Project Gutenberg, this slim philosophical guide defines common sense as a composite of eight trainable faculties — Perception, Memory, Thought, Alertness, Deduction, Foresight, Reason, and Judgment — and works through each one with practical guidance. The authorship is genuinely disputed: the text is attributed to a 12th-century Japanese shogun, but scholars suspect the actual author may have been a French writer presenting wisdom under a borrowed name. That literary mystery is interesting in its own right and does not diminish the value of the content. What the book offers is timeless practical wisdom, cleanly organized, available at no cost. The honest caveats are that the early 20th-century prose can feel formal and stilted, and the 2026 catalog date almost certainly reflects a reprint rather than original publication. A good find for readers who appreciate classical self-improvement thinking.