 Make no mistake about it, the theory of efficacious ideas marks a significant development in the doctrine of Vision in God. One commentator aptly notes that Malebranche’s epistemology shifts from being a vision in God to a vision by God (Alquié 1974, 209). Ideas are no longer the direct objects of perception, passively awaiting our reflection upon them, but the active agents of cognition. Moreover, whereas on Malebranche’s earlier view ideas figured exclusively in the intellectual side of perception, on the new version of the doctrine they cause both our sensations and what he came to call our ‘pure perceptions’ (perceptions pures). Malebranche had been reluctant previously to say that ideas are ‘sensible’ lest he attribute colors and other sensible qualities to God. But on the revamped doctrine he can say that ideas are both sensible and intelligible insofar as they causally affect our mind in different ways (Schmaltz 2000, 80). ‘When the idea of extension affects or modifies the soul with a pure perception, then the soul conceives simply this extension. But when the idea of extension touches the soul more sharply, and affects it with a sense perception, then the soul sees, or senses extension’ (Christian Conversations3, OC 4:75–6). Thus, the theory of efficacious ideas enables Malebranche to offer a more unified theory of cognition.