 Once again, the interesting question is how one should think of the natures of things, and whether the natures of things are rich enough to have various conceptual entailments that are logically binding. An Aristotelian realist about secondary causes would likely hold that the natures of creatures are robustly rich such that the effects that even an omnipotent God can bring about are restricted to the possibilities allowed by these creaturely natures. Malebranche is denying this view of creaturely natures, in that the options for God, as it were, are much more diverse, and we wonder on what grounds Malebranche can argue for this view. In the case of extended substances or bodies, a reason that is independent of theological motivations might be available to Malebranche in the following way: armed with a Cartesian understanding of extended substances, Malebranche could say that given the sparse essence of bodies, consisting of merely size, shape, and motion, there are no conceptual entailments that follow from a concept of a given body that are rich enough to support the typical causal connections Aristotelians would like to affirm. That is, proper consideration of what bodily substances are, Malebranche could argue, clearly reveal that there are no such entailments. And, perhaps, an analogous case can be made for thinking substances, to the effect that that a thinking substance essentially has thoughts does not lead to any obvious conceptual connections that would dovetail nicely with the causal powers traditionally identified as belonging to the mind. That is, the mere having of certain thoughts, which is the essence of the mind, carries no implications as to what other thoughts one must have subsequently or what other states of mind one must be in.