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Collier's claim to recognition lies, however, in the negative aspect of his teaching. Both he and Berkeley opposed the theory current in the philosophy of that time, that matter, though practically unknown to us, has an existence of its own, and at least one property, extension, by which it arouses in us the idea of the sensible world. Berkeley argues against the conception of matter as "unknown support" which Locke upholds in his "Essay on Human Understanding." Collier, on the other hand, aims to prove the non-existence of matter as conceived by Des Cartes and Malebranche, and by their English disciple, John Norris. Upon the philosophy of Des Cartes, Malebranche had made one important advance. With Des Cartes, matter, though dependent upon the will of God, has an existence of its own in its property, extension, by which it affects finite minds. Malebranche likewise grants to matter an existence outside of its being in God; yet the material world plays no part in his system. In the fact that he does not discard this vague something, which he has practically proved to be nothing, lies his great inconsistency. His forward step is in the demonstration that not even by the Cartesian "unknown motion of unknown parts" can body become known to a finite mind; that this knowledge is only possible if both knower and known are taken up and united in one spiritual substance. In criticism, Collier points out that Malebranche himself claims