 Although sensations provide a ‘strong propensity’ to believe in the existence of bodies, they do not provide conclusive proof or even evidence of their existence, for the senses often deceive us (Elucidation 6, OC 3:55f; LO 569f). Malebranche notes, for example, that ‘our eyes represent colors to us on the surface of bodies and … our ears make us hear sounds as if spread out through the air and in the resounding bodies; and if we believe what the senses report, heat will be in fire, sweetness will be in sugar, musk will have an odor….’ (ibid., OC 3:55–6; LO 569). Like many of the mechanical philosophers in the seventeenth century, Malebranche holds that so-called sensible qualities (colors, sounds, odors, heat and cold, etc.) are not in bodies – which again are to be conceived in terms of geometrical extension alone – but are modifications of the mind. However, his point in the passage cited is that the senses deceptively entice us to attribute them to bodies. If they deceive us in this way, then it is at least possible that they also deceive us about the existence of bodies.