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change. We have already seen Descartes using such notions in his
discussion of his own essence as a thinking thing, and remarked
that it is because he holds that it is his essence to be a thinking
thing that he concludes that the soul is always thinking (see above,
p. 96). We shall see shortly that the notion of essence is complex
in this connection. But if some connection of essence and identity is
the main point of the present argument, its general upshot will
presumably be that all the sensible qualities of the wax change,
while the wax remains the same; but its essence is that which
remains the same and does not change; therefore its essence does
not consist in any sensible qualities  where this presumably
means that a correct statement or specification of its essence will
not mention any sensible qualities. What does remain constant is
merely its being something extended, flexible and changeable. If we
take this view of stages (i) and (ii), the rest of the argument, in
particular stage (iii), will be an epistemological conclusion drawn
from the first stages: since the essence does not consist in any
sensible qualities, it cannot be the case that one grasps the essence
by the senses. But to comprehend a certain thing, or in the intel-
lectual sense  perceive it, is to grasp its essence: hence we do not
comprehend physical things by the senses.
If this version correctly represents the argument, Descartes s
reasoning emerges as patently invalid. For from the fact that a
certain quality of a thing changes in certain circumstances, it by no
means follows that no reference to that quality can figure in a
statement of the thing s essence. For instance, the freezing or boil-
ing point of a substance might figure in a statement of its essence.
Similarly, it could be of the essence of wax, as wax, that it changed
in colour, texture, etc. when heated: if a piece of material did not,
one could be certain that it was not wax. If so, it would be false that
there was no reference to colour and texture in the statement of its
essence  on the contrary, there would be such a reference, only it
would be a reference to a possibility of change in colour and
texture. To suppose that a quality that changes cannot figure at all
204 physical objects
in a statement of a thing s essence is to confuse two quite different
things. A statement of essence will indeed be a timeless and neces-
sary statement, which cannot be falsified by changing circum-
stances, but it is quite a different thing, and a mistake, to suppose
that such a statement itself cannot refer to changes in changing
circumstances.
This point still holds even for sensible qualities which do not
change in the way, for instance, that the colour of a litmus paper
gives way to another colour, but which disappear, as the smell and
flavour and characteristic sound of the wax are supposed to do in
Descartes s example. Even these phenomena would not prove that
there could be no reference to these qualities in a statement of the
wax s essence  for it might be of its essence as wax that it had a
smell in certain circumstances, and not in others. Since this is pos-
sible, one has to be wary of a rather more seductive application of
the line of reasoning we are considering. It does look plausible to
say that it cannot be of the essence of wax that it has a smell, for
here is the wax after heating, which is still wax, and yet (we may
suppose) has no smell. In one sense, this is correct: there are cir-
cumstances in which something can be wax and have no smell. But
it still does not follow that the quality of smell has nothing to do
with the essence of the wax, for there might be other circumstances
in which it had to have a smell, if it were wax.
Related to these points is another difficulty that arises from the
present interpretation. Suppose that we do waive the cases of smell,
flavour, etc., which can actually be totally absent from the wax.
Colour, however, seems to be in a different position: for while there
are certain states of the wax in which it has no smell at all, there
does not seem to be any state of the wax, at least as described in
Descartes s example, in which it has no colour at all, and one might
think (again, so far as the example goes) that it was always a prop-
erty of the wax to be coloured in some way or other. It will not do
to reply to this that it is insufficient because what Descartes is
looking for (from whatever misguided conception) is some
determinate quality that the wax permanently possesses. For his
conclusion is that the property that the wax really possesses and
which is essential to it is that of being extended, by which he means
physical objects 205
that it occupies space. What goes with being extended is that the
thing has a certain shape and a certain volume  that it occupies an
area in space determined, as one might say, in contour and in quan-
tity. But it cannot be essential to the piece of wax that it have just
one certain shape, for Descartes himself remarks that when heated
it changes in shape. Hence all that can be essential to it is that it be
extended in some way or other, and this is made clear by
Descartes s saying that what is essential is that it is extended, flex-
ible and changeable. So if a merely indeterminate extension, an
extension which can be determined in various ways, will do for an
essential property, why should indeterminate colour, the property
of being coloured in various ways, be ruled out?
These criticisms have been made on the assumption that if the
argument is concerned with essence, it is concerned with the
essence of wax; that is to say, that the question at issue would be
(i) what makes wax, wax?
We must distinguish this from another question
(ii) what makes matter, matter?
which Descartes discusses at Principles ii 11, where he also goes
through the sensible qualities and dismisses them, there on the
ground that we can conceive of some body or other that lacks each
of them. Even there, his argument, if we construe it as an attempted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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