In René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes experiments with wax to try to prove that things actually exist in this world. This essay will demonstrate how we can tell that things really exist and what wax can perceive. René Descartes begins with a description of the wax so that he can demonstrate the changes that will occur during his experiment. "Take, for example, this piece of wax. It was recently taken from the honeycomb; it has not yet lost all the flavor of honey. It retains some of the scent of the flowers from which it was collected. Its color, shape and size are manifest It is hard and cold; it is easy to touch. If you hit it with your knuckle it will make a sound” (Descartes, 21)René Descartes' experiment consists of melting wax to try to prove existence also what happens to the wax while it is near the fire. The remaining traces of the honey flavor are disappearing increasing; it is becoming liquid and hot; you can hardly touch it. And now, when you hit it, it no longer makes any sound (Descartes, 21)René Descartes explained to us in his book how the wax changes shape so rapidly when it is close to the fire. Yet, when we have finished melting the wax, we still call it wax even though its forms have completely changed. The question Rene Descartes asked himself three questions after his experiment. The first was: what could you get by changing the wax? “What then was there in the water… in the middle of the paper… that made one grasp to feel the wax?” Because I now know that even bodies are not properly perceived by the senses or by the faculty of imagination, but only by the intellect, and that they are not perceived because they are touched or seen, but only because they are understood, I manifestly know that nothing can be perceived more easily and evidently than my mind.” (Descartes, 23) The final decision is that the mind is what grasps and can perceive the wax. René Descartes has just shown us two things in this essay. One is how we can say that things really exist and the other is how the mind can grasp and perceive wax. Works Cited Descartes, René. Meditations on first philosophy. Trans. Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1993. Print.