nobody will rightly apprehend what I am trying to say unless he takes great care not to
confuse God’s power with a king’s human power or right.
PROPOSITION 4:The idea of God, from which infinite things follow in infinite ways,
must be one, and one only.
Proof: Infinite intellect comprehends nothing but the attributes of God and his
affections (Pr. 30, I). But God is one, and one only (Cor. 1, Pr. 14, I). Therefore, the idea
of God, from which infinite things follow in infinite ways, must be one, and one only.
PROPOSITION 5:The formal being1 of ideas recognizes God as its cause only insofar
as he is considered as a thinking thing, and not insofar as he is explicated by any other
attribute; that is, the ideas both of God’s attributes and of individual things recognize as
their efficient cause not the things of which they are ideas, that is, the things perceived,
but God himself insofar as he is a thinking thing.
Proof: This is evident from Pr. 3, II. For there our conclusion that God can form
the idea of his own essence and of everything that necessarily follows therefrom was
inferred solely from God’s being a thinking thing, and not from his being the object of
his own idea. Therefore, the formal being of ideas recognizes God as its cause insofar as
he is a thinking thing. But there is another proof, as follows. The formal being of ideas
is a mode of thinking (as is self-evident); that is (Cor. Pr. 25, I), a mode which expresses
in a definite manner the nature of God insofar as he is a thinking thing, and so does not
involve (Pr. 10, I) the conception of any other attribute of God. Consequently (Ax. 4, I),
it is the effect of no other attribute but thought; and so the formal being of ideas recog-
nizes God as its cause only insofar as he is considered as a thinking thing.
PROPOSITION 6:The modes of any attribute have God for their cause only insofar as
he is considered under that attribute, and not insofar as he is considered under any
other attribute.
Proof: Each attribute is conceived through itself independently of any other
(Pr. 10, I). Therefore, the modes of any attribute involve the conception of their own
attribute, and not that of any other. Therefore, they have God for their cause only
insofar as he is considered under the attribute of which they are modes, and not inso-
far as he is considered under any other attribute (Ax. 4, I).
Corollary: Hence it follows that the formal being of things that are not modes of
thinking does not follow from the nature of God by reason of his first having known them;
rather, the objects of ideas follow and are inferred from their own attributes in the same way
and by the same necessity as we have shown ideas to follow from the attribute of Thought.
PROPOSITION 7:The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and
connection of things.
Proof: This is evident from Ax. 4, I; for the idea of what is caused depends on the
knowledge of the cause of which it is the effect.
Corollary: Hence it follows that God’s power of thinking is on par with his
power of acting. That is, whatever follows formally from the infinite nature of God, all
this follows from the idea of God as an object of thought in God according to the same
order and connection.
Scholium: At this point, before proceeding further, we should recall to mind what
I have demonstrated above—that whatever can be perceived by infinite intellect as consti-
tuting the essence of substance pertains entirely to the one sole substance. Consequently,