862 Paine, Thomas
As a result, Paine’s sense of community operates
on another level; that is, his pleas of “common sense”
have to extend to everyone who shares the values of
the Enlightenment. In this sense, the community
is a cosmopolitan one, and everyone who pos-
sesses the same feeling is automatically in the same
community. Like many of his fellow 18th-century
thinkers, Paine embraces the Enlightenment spirit.
Enlightenment, as they understand it, is a process of
personal maturity from self-incurred slavery to being
one’s own master. But this personal enlightenment
cannot be achieved unless the individual can take
the public into account. In other words, one has to
be morally responsible for the good of humankind.
Thus, for Paine, the colonies’ struggle against the
British rule is no longer just a petty, local grudge
between the colonies and England; it is a matter of
moral imperative.
One can see clearly that Paine’s use of lan-
guage—pleas, protests, solicitations, exclamations—
seeks a broader audience on the basis of affection. At
one point, his passion overtakes his calm demeanor,
and he accuses those who stand by silently of having
“the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.”
He seems to suggest that one’s freedom is never just
one’s own, and the inability to be enlightened will
“bring ruin upon posterity” and turn the current sit-
uation with England into a “relapse more wretched
than the first.” Perhaps this is what Paine’s concept
of community is really about: Though contradicted
at times, what he really wants is a sense of self that
is always based on the welfare of all.
Huang-Hua Chen
Freedom in Common Sense
In his essay “What is Enlightenment?,” the 18th-
century German philosopher Immanuel Kant says
that human beings must take the initial respon-
sibility to free themselves from dependence on
authority. But this awareness of one’s freedom is
never just alone; it always accompanies a sense of
collectivity. For Kant, one is free only when one
takes into consideration the collective inability of
men to free themselves from immaturity that one
is truly enlightened. Such is the historical condition
that produces the overarching theme of freedom in
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
Paine’s arguments reflect several Enlightenment
ideals. In the section entitled “Of Monarchy and
Hereditary Succession,” for example, he argues that
there is no original inequality among human beings.
It is only after the concept of king is introduced that
“oppressions” and “wars” begin. Paine shares with
his fellow Enlightenment thinkers similar views on
the vice of the government in restraining personal
freedom and promoting corruption. For instance,
the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau talks
extensively about the initial natural status of human-
kind and the subsequent inequality and corruption
of human nature. This idea of natural rights was
prevalent in the 18th century, and it becomes the
foundation of Paine’s freedom. From this point of
view, therefore, it is only “reasonable” to assume one’s
own natural rights.
Paine goes one step further. Without these
rights, one is subject to the harsh rule of the monar-
chial system because it will only think for its own
self-interest. He attacks the English monarch for
being an enemy to liberty and for discovering such
a desire for power at all costs. Only a civil society
where the freedom of electing one’s representative
is enforced makes sure that common welfare is
promoted. Paine advocates the idea of a represen-
tative political system in Common Sense. He talks
about forming a constitution that would protect
civil liberty without political encroachment. For
him, independence means making our own laws,
and the ideal manifestation would be a republic. As
a result, he says, “a government of our own is our
natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on
the precariousness of human affairs, he will become
convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to
form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate
manner.”
But this is not the only reason for Paine to go
against harsh rules of the monarchy. To submit
to the rule of the king means to forfeit one’s own
enlightenment, to go against the reasonable faculties
that have been bestowed on us. Like Kant, Paine
thinks this is by no means self-determining; rather,
it is a form of laziness that hinders one from attain-
ing true enlightenment. When attacking the idea of
the monarch and the hereditary succession, Paine
says that “as the first is a degradation and lessen-