The inability to comprehend any aspect of the thing other than its properties implies, this argument maintains, that one cannot conceive of a "bare particular" (a "substance" without properties), an implication that directly opposes substance theory. The conceptual difficulty of "bare particulars" was illustrated by John Locke when he described a "substance" by itself, apart from its properties, as ""something, I know not what. [...] The idea then we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown, support of those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist sine re substante, without something to support them, we call that support substantia; which, according to the true import of the word, is, in plain English, standing under or upholding.""