ABSTRACT
As his examples indicate, Locke applied the term "substance" to a wide variety of things and materials - for example, to sticks, stones, plants, animals, spirits, artifacts, and stuff such as gold and water. Although such things are describable in a great many ways, they fall into the category of material or spiritual things because of certain basic qualities. A particular thing may be describable as a piece of furniture - specifically, a lacquered desk - by virtue of its function and finish, but it is a material thing because it has the basic qualities of things of that category. For Locke, the basic qualities of material things are both occurrent and dispositional. A piece of gold has at a given time a particular size and shape: these are examples of its occurrent qualities. But it also has distinctive powers, as Locke put it. Gold not only has the power or disposition (as we are apt to say today) to dissolve in aqua regia; it is also malleable, or capable of being hammered into a different shape, and visible: it will look yellow to normal observers who view it in good light.
