 A snowball has powers to produce ideas of white, cold, and round; the mind possesses the ideas. The point is that ideas are intentional and ontologically distinct from the qualities. Yet Locke says he will sometimes speak of ideas as in the subjects but should be understood to mean qualities of the subjects that cause the ideas in us. This is said elsewhere to comply with ordinary ways of speaking (E 2.32.2). Locke apparently sees little harm in indulging this once it is understood that it cannot be correct. This is one of several ordinary but inexact uses of language that play a role in Locke’s theory of qualities; on civil and philosophical uses of language, see Essay 3.9.3.