  Next, Aristotle tries to put Humpty Dumpty together again: Accidents cannot be predicated of accidents, but they must be predicated of something. For example, if there are accidents such as the musical or the pale, these cannot be predicated of one another, so they need a subject with an essential nature to be predicated of, for example, Socrates, a human being. While Socrates is pale and musical, the pale is not musical, nor the musical pale, unless all this means is that Socrates is pale and musical. Nor does a collection of accidents—the pale, the musical and so on—add up to one subject like Socrates. Nor does it tell us what Socrates is, a human being. Accidents need subjects and subjects that are substances and have an essential nature, and, if that is the case, essentialism is reinstated and PNC applies after all.