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Full Idea
If you perceive an object, white, round, and a foot in diameter, if you had not been able to distinguish the colour from the figure, and both from the magnitude, your senses would only give you one complex and confused notion of all these mingled together
Gist of Idea
If you can't distinguish the features of a complex object, your notion of it would be a muddle
Source
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 1)
Book Ref
Reid,Thomas: 'Inquiry and Essays', ed/tr. Beanblossom /K.Lehrer [Hackett 1983], p.257
A Reaction
His point is that if you reject the 'abstraction' of these qualities, you still cannot deny that distinguishing them is an essential aspect of perceiving complex things. Does this mean that animals distinguish such things?