Full Idea
Augustine says bodies don't form images in our spirit; our spirit does that itself with amazing quickness. ...So the appearances under which mind knows things aren't drawn from the things themselves.
Gist of Idea
Our images of bodies are not produced by the bodies, but by our own minds
Source
report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Thomas Aquinas - Quodlibeta 8.2.1
Book Reference
McDermott,Timothy: 'Aquinas: how to read' [Granta 2007], p.7
A Reaction
This is Augustine's theory of 'illumination' - that God creates experience within us. His theory was soon discarded by the early scholastics.