 One should not suppose that Malebranche was unaware of Descartes’ distinction between formal and objective reality. On the contrary, he casts the distinction in even starker terms: the mind’s perceptions have formal reality, and only formal reality, for they do not represent anything beyond themselves. Objective reality is reserved for ideas in God, the only representative beings. But why can’t ideas be perceptions in finite minds? In particular, why can’t our mind have an idea with infinite objective reality? As faithful Cartesians, Arnauld and Régis both raise this objection against Malebranche, though using slightly different technical vocabulary. Instead of speaking of formal and objective reality, they speak of something being finite or infinite in essendo as opposed to finite or infinite in repraesentando, respectively. Addressing Malebranche directly, Arnauld writes: