ABSTRACT
The earliest of Thomas Paine's major writings, Common Sense was his most powerful work, surpassing his French Revolutionary writings. To understand this, people first must inquire into what Paine understood by using the concept of common sense itself. This concept provided his pamphlet with its underlying unity, and it was his focal point. It had to do with Paine's understanding of human nature and the place human beings occupied in the physical world. Kings, lords, and all those who sought to dominate others ranked 'below the stature of manhood'. This telling phrase requires some analysis in order to understand the full power of Paine's attack on the unnatural aspects of monarchy and aristocracy. Men wore government as they wore their clothes, to cover their shame or, as Paine put it in Common Sense, 'to supply the defect of moral virtue'.
