Spinoza declares that “the human mind possesses an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God” {36}—not of God in His completeness, but it is adequate. The demonstration of this proposition is at first sight unsatisfactory, because we look for one which shall enable us to form an image of God like that which we can form of a triangle. But we cannot have “a knowledge of God as distinct as that which we have of common notions, because we cannot imagine God as we can bodies.” “To your question,” says Spinoza to Boxel, “whether I have as clear an idea of God as I have of a triangle? I answer, Yes. But if you ask me whether I have as clear an image of God as I have of a triangle I shall say, No; for we cannot imagine God, but we can in a measure understand Him. Here also, it is to be observed that I do not say that I altogether know God, but that I understand some of His attributes—not all, nor the greatest part, and it is clear that my ignorance of very many does not prevent my knowledge of certain others. When I learned the elements of Euclid, I very soon understood that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and I clearly perceived this property of a triangle, although I was ignorant of many others.” {37a} “Individual things are nothing but affections or modes of God’s attributes, expressing those attributes in a certain and determinate manner,” {37b} and hence “the more we understand individual objects, the more we understand God.” {37c} The intellect of God in no way resembles the human intellect, for we cannot conceive Him as proposing an end and considering the means to attain it. “The intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute His essence, is in truth the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence—a truth which seems to have been understood by those who have maintained that God’s intellect, will, and power are one and the same thing.” {37d} The whole of God is _fact_, and Spinoza denies any reserve in Him of something unexpressed. “The omnipotence of God has been actual from eternity, and in the same actuality will remain to eternity,” {38} not of course in the sense that everything which exists has always existed as we now know it, or that nothing will exist hereafter which does not exist now, but that in God everything that has been, and will be, eternally _is_.