Thomas Reid Distinct Quotations

If we could obtain a distinct and full history of all that hath passed in the mind of a child from the beginning of life and sensation till it grows up to the use of reason, how its infant faculties began to work, and how they brought forth and ripened all the various notions, opin-ions, and sentiments, which we find in ourselves when we come to be capable of reflection, this would be a trea-sure of natural history which would probably give more light into the human faculties, than all the systems of philosophers about them from the beginning of the world.

However much our late fatalists have boasted of this principle as of a law of nature... I am persuaded that, whenever they shall be pleased to give us any measure of the strength of motives distinct from their prevalence, it will appear, from experience, that the strongest motive does not always prevail.

It follows also, that the active power, of which only we can have any distinct conception, can be only in beings that have understanding and will.