However, contrary to Locke’s claim, admitting scientific
explanations of this type need not be accompanied by rejecting any scientific role for real
essences. Instead, it gives them a further role; we can explain the truth of generalisations
like these ones about the solubility of gold by saying that they result from the underlying
real essence of gold, and we can pursue an understanding of this real essence by attempting
to determine how it can explain such generalisations. This in fact is exactly what scientists
do; they look for an underlying structure that confers upon gold both its power to affect
spectroscopes in certain ways, and its capacities to dissolve or resists dissolution in various
substances. So the real implication of the Royal Society’s approach to scientific explanation
is that the notion of such explanation should be broadened, instead of altered to
eliminate real essences. This broadening will still leave real essences playing a fundamental
role, since they will be the ultimate goal and ending point of scientific explanation.