Common things

Use in the book

Trust in infinite goodness leads the speaker to hypothesize that the best things should be most common. Air, water, light, persons, trees, and inhabited places can then be compared with rare jewels through their service, especially by imagining their removal. Commonness proves compatible with, and often indicative of, the greatest real value. The reversal is not simply a taste for rustic simplicity. Invisible goods can become common through memory and public esteem: laws, Christ's Passion, and the ways of God in past ages are available to many despite not being locally visible.

There is also an interpersonal reason to love common goods more. Their service to other people enriches them for the one who loves those people. Scarcity is no longer required to make possession delightful. Familiarity remains a danger, however: a continually present beautiful object can disappear from attention. The common gift must be repeatedly known and prized, not merely declared valuable once.

Places to read

1. I.3The programme concerns things strange yet common and profitable yet unesteemed.
2. II.20Constantly present beauty can become common and despised.
3. III.53Common goods are selected for study and evaluated through service and imagined absence.
4. III.54Invisible and past goods become common through public esteem and remembrance.
5. IV.17A common joy is more delightful because it serves all the people one loves.

In this edition

“Common” need not mean legally held in common or universally distributed in equal material shares. The word can refer to availability, familiarity, public remembrance, or shared enjoyment.