 Malebranche is able to extend the scope of Augustine’s theory of illumination as a result of what were then two recent philosophical developments, courtesy of Descartes. First, the representational theory of ideas allowed Malebranche to say that what we see directly in God are not changeable objects but ideas or essences. In the case of material things we see intelligible extension, which is immutable and incorruptible, in keeping with the divine nature. Second, Malebranche took from Descartes the view that colors and the other so-called ‘secondary qualities’ are not qualities of bodies but sensations or modifications of the mind (whether Descartes actually held this position himself is controversial). Since bodies do not have these qualities, the idea of extension need not represent them, and once again God is spared from having to accommodate changeable entities. It is interesting to note here that by reducing secondary qualities to sensations, Malebranche can also explain the variations we see in the primary qualities of extension. Even if bodies are not colored, they still change their size, shape, motion, and position. How can intelligible extension represent those variations without violating God’s immutability? The answer is that it need not, for as we have already discussed, color and light sensations ‘particularize’ extension and enable the mind to discriminate shapes and, correlatively, all the other primary qualities – sizes, positions, motions, etc. Sensations, then, are responsible for all the variations we see in material objects.