 This might well be based on a paragraph in Essays on the IntellectuaI Powers of Man (Reid 1785 [2002: 203–04]). It states that feeling informs us that the fire is hot but not what heat is in the fire; it notes that this may seem to be a contradiction but says it ought to be accepted. It allows that if we had no notion of heat we could not understand the assertion that fire is hot, and concludes “we have a notion, but it is a relative notion. We know they are the causes of certain known effects” (Reid 1785 [2002: 203–04]). This might naturally be understood to invoke the obscurity of relational specifications of qualities to dispel the seeming contradiction.