  Some other interpretations absolve Locke of inconsistency, either by emphasizing his so-called dogmatic side while downplaying or reinterpreting his agnostic tendencies, or emphasizing his agnosticism while downplaying his dogmatism. One line of interpretation, then, reads Locke as in some manner accepting the corpuscular hypothesis (Mandelbaum 1964, chapter 1; Osler 1970, p. 12; Ayers 1975; McCann 1994, §1 and p. 85; McCann 2002, pp. 354–355). According to weaker versions of this reading, Locke’s project is the naturalistic one of pursuing the philosophical implications of the best available scientific theory, and developing an epistemological basis for it. McCann, for example, reads Locke as defending the atomist version of the corpuscular philosophy over its Cartesian competitor by providing an epistemology for it. While Descartes had provided an epistemology for his plenist version, there was nothing comparable for the atomist version associated with Gassendi and Boyle until Locke supplied it (McCann 2002, pp. 354–355). According to Ayers’ stronger interpretation, Locke accepts “pure mechanism”, that is, the orthodox version of the corpuscular hypothesis, which includes the contact action proviso.  According to this view, all of matter’s qualities flow from its real essence (Ayers 1981).