se of his
perfection, cannot be other than it is, and therefore things cannot be
differently constituted. For to suppose otherwise is to subject God to
fate, an absurdity which is not worth waste of time to refute.

The sum of the matter is that God necessarily exists; that He is one
God; that He acts from the necessity of His nature; that He is the free
cause of all things; that all things depend on Him; and that all things
have been predestined by Him.

_II.--Concerning Mind_

I pass on to those things which must necessarily follow from the essence
of the eternal and infinite God.

Thought is the attribute of God. Individual thoughts are modes
expressing the nature of God in a certain and determinate manner. The
order and connection of these ideas coincides with the order and
connection of things, therefore God's power of thinking is equal to His
power of acting. The circle existing in nature and the idea of an
existing circle which is also in God, are one and the same thing,
exhibited through different attributes. God is truly the cause of things
as they are in themselves, in so far as He consists of infinite
attributes.

The first thing which forms the actual Being of the human mind is
nothing else than the idea of an individual actually existing. The
essence of man is formed by certain modes of the Divine attributes, that
is to say, modes of thought. The idea is the first thing which forms the
Being of the human mind. It must be an idea of an individual thing
actually existing. Hence the human mind is part of the infinite
intellect of God.

The knowledge of everything which happens necessarily exists in God, in
so far as He forms the nature of the human mind. Man thinks. Modes of
thought, such as love, desire, or affections of the mind under whatever
designation, do not exist, unless in the same individual exists an idea
of a thing loved, desired, etc. But the idea may exist though no other
mode of thinking exists. Therefore the essence of man does not
necessarily involve existence.

We perceive that a body is affected in certain ways. No individual
things are felt or perceived by us except bodies and modes of thought.

The object of the idea constituting the human mind is a body, or a
certain mode of actually existing extension, and nothing else. For if
the body were not the object of the human mind, the ideas of the
affections of the body would not be in God, in so far as He has created
our mind, but