 In a section of the third book of the Recherche devoted to “the nature of ideas,” Malebranche argues for his famous doctrine of the vision in God. More precisely, the thesis in this section is that we see external objects by means of ideas in God. The argument for this thesis begins with the claim at the beginning of this section that “everyone agrees that we do not perceive objects external to us by themselves” since it can hardly be the case that “the soul should leave the body to stroll about the heavens to see the objects present there” (Malebranche [OC], 1:413). Arnauld later took exception to this starting point, countering that “ideas, taken in the sense of representative beings, distinct from perceptions, are not needed by our soul in order to see bodies” (Arnauld 1683, 18). His main objection is that Malebranche stacked the deck in favor of his doctrine that we see ideas of bodies in God by assuming from the start that these ideas are distinct from our own perceptions.