97. It is of these circumstances, as the constituents of the real, that he is thinking in the passage last quoted. As qualified by ‘circumstances of place’ the real is a parcel of matter, and under this designation Locke thought of it as a subject of ‘primary qualities of body.’ [1] These, indeed, as he enumerates them, may be shown to imply relations going far beyond that of simple distinctness between atoms, and thus to involve much more of the creative action of thought; but we need be the less concerned for this usurpation on the part of the particular being, since that which he illegitimately conveys to it as derived from ‘circumstances of place,’ he virtually takes away from it again by limitation in time. The ‘particular being’ has indeed on the one hand a real essence, consisting of certain primary qualities, but on the other it has no continued identity. It is only real as present to feeling at this or that time. The particular being of one moment is not the particular being of the next. Thus the primary qualities which are a real essence, _i.e._ an essence of a particular being, at one moment, are not its real essence at the next, because, while they as represented in the mind remain the same, the ‘it,’ the particular being is different. An _immutable_ essence for that very reason cannot be real. The immutability can only lie in a relation between a certain abstract (_i.e._ unreal) idea and a certain sound. (Book III. chap. iii. sec. 19.) ‘The real constitution of things,’ on the other hand, ‘begin and perish with them. All things that exist are liable to change.’ (_Ibid_.) Locke, it is true (as is implied in the term _change_ [2]) never quite drops the notion of there being a real identity in some unknown background, but this makes no difference in the bearing of his doctrine upon the possibility of ‘real’ knowledge. It only means that for an indefinite particularity of ‘beings’ there is substituted one ‘being’ under an indefinite peculiarity of forms. Though the reality of the thing _in itself_ be immutable, yet its reality _for us_ is in perpetual flux. ‘In itself’ it is a substance without an essence, a ‘something we know not what’ without any ideas to ‘support;’ a ‘parcel of matter,’ indeed, but one in which no quality is really essential, because its real essence, consisting in its momentary presentation to sense, changes with the moments. [3] [1] According to Locke’s ordinary usage of the terms, no distinction appears between ‘matter’ and ‘body.’ In Book III. chap. X. sec. 15, however, he distinguishes matter from body as the less determinate conception from the more. The one implies solidity merely, the other extension and figure also, so that we may talk of the ‘matter of bodies,’ but not of the ‘body of matters.’ But since solidity, according to Locke’s definition, involves the other ‘primary qualities,’ this distinction does not avail him much. [2] See above, paragraph 69.