(2) Is not any possible essence (_e.g._ “water,” or “a triangle”) so necessarily what it is that even if it never did and never will exist, nay even were there no human or other finite mind to conceive it, it would still be what it is (_e.g._ “a chemical compound of oxygen and hydrogen,” or “a plane rectilinear three-sided figure”)—so that there must be some Necessarily Existing Intelligence in and from which it has this necessary truth as a possible essence?(97) These essences, as known to us, are so far from being grounded in, or explained by, the things of our actual experience, that we rather regard the latter as grounded in the former. Do we not consider possible essences as the prototypes and exemplars to which actual things must conform in order to be actual, in order to exist at all?(98) (3) Finally, the relations which we apprehend as obtaining between them, we see to be necessary and immutable relations. They embody necessary truths which are for our minds the standards of all truth. Such necessary truths cannot be grounded either in the contingent human mind, or in the contingent and mutable actuality of the things of our immediate experience. Therefore we can and must infer from them the reality of a Necessary, Immutable Being, of whose essence they must be imitations. If, then, this ideal order of intrinsically possible essences is logically and ontologically prior to the contingent actualizations of any of them (even though it be posterior to them _in the order of our knowledge_, which is based on _actual experience_), there must be likewise ontologically prior to all contingent actualities (including our own minds) some _Necessary Intelligence_ in which this order of possible essences has its ideal being. 19. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THOSE INFERENCES.—The validity of the general line of argument indicated in the preceding paragraphs has been seriously questioned. Among other criticisms the following points have been urged(99):—