  All conceptions conform to their object, and error consists in the will forming a judgement beyond conception. On this point, Desgabets’s account of error looks very much like that found in Descartes. However, in Desgabets, the domain of simple conception is less restricted, as is the proper function of the senses. The senses not only serve to determine what is good or harmful in life, but they also serve in knowing the nature of things. However, we often form false judgements of the true nature of the movements experienced by the senses because of their role in preserving life (OPD 6: 228). On Desgabets’s account, it is because the senses serve to promote the preservation of our life by telling us immediately which particular bodies are harmful or profitable that they can not also provide immediate knowledge of the true nature of these movements that impinge upon us. If the senses were such that they gave us immediate knowledge of the true nature of the movements impinging upon them, then they could not tell us at the same time what particular bodies are good or harmful to us. Thoughts are successive, and so the senses, in order to preserve life by warding off immediate and unexpected dangers, must be able to respond first and foremost to the preservation value of a particular object.