t cause,
which necessarily posits the existence of the thing but does not take it
away.

VI. By reality and perfection I understand the same thing.

VII. By individual things I understand things which are finite and which
have a determinate existence; and if a number of individuals so unite in
one action that they are all simultaneously the cause of one effect, I
consider them all, so far, as one individual thing.

_Axioms_

I. The essence of man does not involve necessary existence; that is to
say, the existence as well as the non-existence of this or that man may
or may not follow from the order of Nature.

II. Man thinks.

III. Modes of thought, such as love, desire, or the emotions of the
mind, by whatever name they may be called, do not exist, unless in the
same individual the idea exist of a thing loved, desired, etc. But the
idea may exist although no other mode of thinking exist.

IV. We perceive that a certain body is affected in many ways.

V. No individual things are felt or perceived by us excepting bodies and
modes of thought.

_The Mind of God_

Individual thoughts, or this and that thought, are modes which express
the nature of God in a certain and determinate manner. God therefore
possesses an attribute, the conception of which is involved in all
individual thoughts, and through which they are conceived. Thought,
therefore, is one of the infinite attributes of God which expresses the
eternal and infinite essence of God or, in other words, God is a
thinking thing.

This proposition is plain from the fact that we can conceive an infinite
thinking Being. For the more things a thinking being can think, the more
reality or perfection we conceive it to possess, and therefore the being
which can think an infinitude of things in infinite ways is necessarily
infinite by his power of thinking. Since, therefore, we can conceive an
infinite Being by attending to thought alone, thought is necessarily one
of the infinite attributes of God.[14]

God can think an infinitude of things in infinite ways, or (which is the
same thing) can form an idea of His essence and of all the things which
necessarily follow from it. But everything which is in the power of God
is necessary. Therefore in God there necessarily exists the idea of His
essence, and of all things which necessarily follow from His essence.

The infinite intellect comprehends nothing but the attributes of God and
His modes. But God is one. T