Key Arguments

• By Ax. IV (Part I), the idea of an effect depends on knowledge of its cause, mirroring the causal order.
• Corollary: Whatever follows from God's infinite nature in Extension follows in the same order from the idea of God in Thought.
• Note elaborates: substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance expressed through different attributes; likewise, a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing expressed in two ways.
• Therefore explanations must respect attribute-parallel causal chains: explain modes of thinking by Thought alone, and modes of extension by Extension alone.

Source Quotes

Things represented in ideas follow, and are derived from their particular attribute, in the same manner, and with the same necessity as ideas follow (according to what we have shown) from the attribute of thought. PROP. VII. The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things. Proof.—This proposition is evident from Part i.,

For the idea of everything that is caused depends on a knowledge of the cause, whereof it is an effect. Corollary.—Hence God's power of thinking is equal to his realized power of action—that is, whatsoever follows from the infinite nature of God in the world of extension (formaliter), follows without exception in the same order and connection from the idea of God in the world of thought (objective). Note.—Before going any further, I wish to recall to mind what has been pointed out above—namely, that whatsoever can be perceived by the infinite intellect as constituting the essence of substance, belongs altogether only to one substance: consequently, substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one attribute, now through the other.

Corollary.—Hence God's power of thinking is equal to his realized power of action—that is, whatsoever follows from the infinite nature of God in the world of extension (formaliter), follows without exception in the same order and connection from the idea of God in the world of thought (objective). Note.—Before going any further, I wish to recall to mind what has been pointed out above—namely, that whatsoever can be perceived by the infinite intellect as constituting the essence of substance, belongs altogether only to one substance: consequently, substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one attribute, now through the other. So, also, a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, though expressed in two ways.

Note.—Before going any further, I wish to recall to mind what has been pointed out above—namely, that whatsoever can be perceived by the infinite intellect as constituting the essence of substance, belongs altogether only to one substance: consequently, substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one attribute, now through the other. So, also, a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, though expressed in two ways. This truth seems to have been dimly recognized by those Jews who maintained that God, God's intellect, and the things understood by God are identical.

Key Concepts

• PROP. VII. The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
• God's power of thinking is equal to his realized power of action
• substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one attribute, now through the other.
• a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, though expressed in two ways.

Context

Ethics, Part II, Proposition 7 with Corollary and Note (lines 778–?)