Thomas Reid Quotes
A Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment.
(1710 - 1796)
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A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to examine even those distinctions that are to be found in the structure of all languages... in that case, such a distinction may be imputed to a vulgar error, which ought to be corrected in philosophy.
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And, if we have any evidence that the wisdom which formed the plan is in the man, we have the very same evidence, that the power which executed it is in him also.
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But when, in the first setting out, he takes it for granted without proof, that distinctions found in the structure of all languages, have no foundation in nature; this surely is too fastidious a way of treating the common sense of mankind.
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Every conjecture we can form with regard to the works of God has as little probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to the works of a man.
[God]
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Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned.
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If there be anything that can be called genius, it consists chiefly in ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind, till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.
[Attention]
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It is a question of fact, whether the influence of motives be fixed by laws of nature, so that they shall always have the same effect in the same circumstances.
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The laws of nature are the rules according to which effects are produced; but there must be a lawgiver - a cause which operates according to these rules. - The laws of navigation never steered a ship, and the law of gravity never moved a planet.
[Nature]
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The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.
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The sceptical writers are a set whose business it is to prick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when these places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more firm and solid than it was before.
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There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.
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