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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.