In Descartes' quest for an axiom, he examined many aspects of knowledge. One area he contemplated was the nature of known objects. What can be known about an object? Even accepting the truth of the senses, we often receive perceptions which are… questionable. This Descartes demonstrated through his "Wax Analogy".

When we examine wax, we can list off its properties and we know what we are referring to. It is solid. It has color, taste, and scent. All these things we recognize as belonging to the thing we call wax. But, when heat is applied it looses its form; it becomes liquid. The scent and taste disappear, the color changes. The thing now has totally different properties, and yet we still call it wax. How can two things have different properties and yet be the same?

This is a violation of Leibniz's Law, and it is the point toward which Descartes had aimed his analogy. We know that these two separate forms have different properties, and by Leibniz's Law, they are not the same, but for some reason we still consider them to both be wax.

When a person refers to wax, do they mean that first (Solid) substance? Do they mean the second (Liquid) form? Or is there something else? What is it that we truly mean when we call something wax?

So that we don't drift too far from the useful, we should take Bishop Berkeley's point about "speaking with the vulgar" to heart. If you were to present to the common man a candlestick and a bowl of melted wax, then ask them which was wax, he would most likely point to the stick, being most familiar with that form. But, does that mean that the liquid is not wax? If that is the case, then what is it? And, at what point does it cease to be wax?

If the commoner had seen the wax melted and poured out into the bowl, he would most certainly have called the liquid "wax." So, we see that the term must refer to more than just the appearance of the substance. There must be some essential property which has not, to this point, been mentioned. What could that be? The chemical composition perhaps?

The common man of today would most likely be able to tell you that the wax had changed because the atoms had been bombarded with energy (heat) which had caused the atoms to become more active and thus loose their solid form. This is a simple explanation, but one which most people can comprehend based on their high school chemistry classes. But, what about the commoner from Descartes time, or even further back in history? What would he say the essential property was?

Depending on the times, he might just mumble something about God and then pass your name on to the local church officials. Or he might say that he didn't like to think about that sort of thing. But, if you got lucky you might get an answer to the effect of, "wax is what they make candles out of." The wax is what allows a flame to hold steady, giving light to a room, yet which melts away in order that the wick might continue to burn and give light. An answer which has to do with the function of the wax from a strictly human perspective. Wax would seem more an occupation, rather than a substance. A thing is wax only in so far as it performs the job of wax, rather than anything else.

But, perhaps we don't need to reach this conclusion. Perhaps we skipped over one important possibility near the beginning which sent us off along this path. What could that be? We have failed to list one of the wax's properties. Certainly, the wax at room temperature appears solid, and after heat is applied it becomes liquid. But, that is not a dividing line between two separate substances, it is a demonstration of one of that single substance's properties!

I, like the wax, am solid (For the most part). But, when I am approached by heat, I do not become liquid. At the very most, my solid exterior would become fuel for the flame and the remains would become powder. When the heat source is removed, I am still solid, but I will never function again in the same way. The wax, however, can.

But this brings us back to the question, what is the essential property of an object? Because, though I had become powder, I would still refer to that powder as "me." There seems to be some essence that continues, despite physical change in an object. For, while the hay stack with one piece of hay removed is not the same haystack, or while you cannot step twice into the same river, we still believe that it is possible. Because, we do not see (Without being trained to see) these changes as creating a new object. The object continues, in spite of the physical change. This conclusion screams aloud Descartes' dualism, the union of they physical with the mental. Or, perhaps "mental" would not be the best word for it, most people would not be ready to declare wax as a thinking object. For lack of a better word, I shall refer to this non-physical quality as "spiritual."

It is this spiritual quality that Descartes was searching for with his wax analogy. It is the Form of Plato's theory. But, more importantly, it is the "I" in "I think; therefore I exist." And so, with one open flame Descartes set the world on its head. His own Copernican Revolution to reshape the world of thought and to once again unite the real with the ideal.

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