things can be or be conceived without God ; or else, as is more
probably the case, they hold inconsistent doctrines. I think the
cause for such confusion is mainly, that they do not keep to the
proper order of philosophic thinking. The nature of God, which
should be reflected on first, inasmuch as it is prior both in the
order of knowledge and the order of nature, they have taken to be
last in the order of knowledge, and have put into the first place
what they call the objects of sensation ; hence, while they are
considering natural phenomena, they give no attention at all to
the divine nature, and, when afterwards they apply their mind to
the study of the divine nature, they are quite unable to bear in
mind the first hypotheses, with which they have overlaid the
knowledge of natural phenomena, inasmuch as such hypotheses are
no help towards understanding the divine nature. So that it is
hardly to be wondered at, that these persons contradict
themselves freely.
However, I pass over this point. My intention her was only
to give a reason for not saying, that that, without which a thing
cannot be or be conceived, belongs to the essence of that thing :
individual things cannot be or be conceived without God, yet God
does not appertain to their essence. I said that "I considered
as belonging to the essence of a thing that, which being given,
the thing is necessarily given also, and which being removed, the
thing is necessarily removed also ; or that without which the
thing, and which itself without the thing can neither be nor be
conceived." (II. Def. ii.)

PROP. XI. The first element, which constitutes the actual being
of the human mind, is the idea of some particular thing actually
existing.