 According to Reid, when experiencing the smell of a rose, you have a pleasing sensation and directly perceive the quality of a body that causes it. The sensation is felt; the external cause is conceived and firmly believed to exist. By contrast, an experience of hardness or softness involves faint and uninteresting sensations that serve just as signs to which the mind immediately responds by conceiving and believing in the bodily qualities they stand for. Pressing a hand on the top of a table, you have a sensation which is typically unnoticed and you notice a property of the table, a cohesion of its parts sufficiently firm to resist any change of its shape. Tactual perception of figure is similar: when you press your hand around the surface of a ball, you feel the figure; although the feeling can be noticed with attention and practice, it is usually disregarded (Reid 1785 [2002: 193–7]; 1764 [1997: 55–7]).