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Full Idea
I think it requires some ripeness of understanding to distinguish the qualities of a body from the body; perhaps this distinction is not made by brutes, or by infants.
Gist of Idea
Only mature minds can distinguish the qualities of a body
Source
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 19)
Book Ref
Reid,Thomas: 'Inquiry and Essays', ed/tr. Beanblossom /K.Lehrer [Hackett 1983], p.192
A Reaction
I'm glad the brutes get a mention in his assessment of these questions. I take such thinking to arise from what can be labelled the faculty of abstraction, which presumably only appears in a mature brain. It is second-level thinking.
| 6492 | Reid is seen as the main direct realist of the eighteenth century [Reid, by Robinson,H] |
| 23634 | Accepting the existence of anything presupposes the notion of existence [Reid] |
| 23635 | Truths are self-evident to sensible persons who understand them clearly without prejudice [Reid] |
| 23637 | Primary qualities are the object of mathematics [Reid] |
| 23638 | Secondary qualities conjure up, and are confused with, the sensations which produce them [Reid] |
| 23639 | It is unclear whether a toothache is in the mind or in the tooth, but the word has a single meaning [Reid] |
| 23640 | Only mature minds can distinguish the qualities of a body [Reid] |
| 23641 | People dislike believing without evidence, and try to avoid it [Reid] |
| 23642 | If non-rational evidence reaches us, it is reason which then makes use of it [Reid] |
| 7631 | Sensation is not committed to any external object, but perception is [Reid] |