to say, whatever follows _formally_ from the infinite nature of God,
follows from the idea of God (idea Dei), in the same order and in the
same connection _objectively_ in God.

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and
connection of things.

Before we go any farther, we must here recall to our memory what we have
already demonstrated, that everything which can be perceived by the
infinite intellect as constituting the essence of substance pertains
entirely to the one sole substance only, and consequently that substance
thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, which is
now comprehended under this attribute and now under that. Thus, also, a
mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing
expressed in two different ways--a truth which some of the Hebrews
appear to have seen as if through a cloud, since they say that God, the
intellect of God, and the things which are the objects of that intellect
are one and the same thing. For example, the circle existing in nature
and the idea that is in God of an existing circle are one and the same
thing, which is manifested through different attributes; and, therefore,
whether we think of Nature under the attribute of extension, or under
the attribute of thought, or under any other attribute whatever, we
shall discover one and the same order, or one and the same connection of
causes; that is to say, in every case the same sequence of things. Nor
have I had any other reason for saying that God is the cause of the
idea, for example, of the circle in so far only as He is a thinking
thing, and of the circle itself in so far as He is an extended thing,
but this, that the formal Being of the idea of a circle can only be
perceived through another mode of thought, as its proximate cause, and
this again must be perceived through another, and so on _ad infinitum_.
So that when things are considered as modes of thought, we must explain
the order of the whole of Nature or the connection of causes by the
attribute of thought alone, and when things are considered as modes of
extension, the order of the whole of Nature must be explained through
the attribute of extension alone, and so with other attributes.
Therefore God is in truth the cause of things as they are in themselves
in so far as He consists of infinite attributes, nor for the present can
I explain the matter more clearly.

_The Origin of the Human Mind_

The human