Full Idea
Essences of natural things are not fancified vacuities parading themselves ...as the ultimate explanation of everything that happens in the world. They are natures whose possession is a precondition of their owners being divided from the rest of reality.
Gist of Idea
Essences are not explanations, but individuations
Source
David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 5.2)
Book Reference
Wiggins,David: 'Sameness and Substance Renewed' [CUP 2001], p.143
A Reaction
Thus Wiggins rejects the explanation account of essence, with an assertion of his own (highly implausible) view that essence is about individuation rather than about behaviour. Individuation strikes me as an entirely human activity, and not 'real'.