[Note N2]: B omits these three words.

[Note N3]: [[This note is flagged to the following paragraph in the original but Wolf believed it to belong here]]
From the definition which follows in chapter 2, namely, that God has infinite attributes, we can prove his existence thus: Whatever we clearly and distinctly see to belong to the nature of a thing, that we can also with truth affirm of that thing; now to the nature of a being that has infinite attributes belongs existence, which is an attribute; therefore... To assert that this may well be affirmed of the idea, but not of the thing itself, is false: for the Idea does not really consist of the attribute which belongs to this being, so that which is affirmed of the thing is [affirmed] neither of the thing, nor of that which is affirmed of the thing; so that there is a great difference between the Idea and the Ideatum: therefore what is affirmed of the thing is not affirmed of the Idea, and vice versa. [text corrupt]

The first we prove thus:
If there is an idea of God, then the cause thereof must exist formaliter, and contain in itself all that the idea has objective;
Now there is an idea of God;
Therefore...

[Note N2]: Further, to say that this idea is a fiction, this also is false: for it is impossible to have this [idea] if it [the ideatum] does not exist; this is shown on page [this], and we also add the following:
   It is quite true that when an idea has first come to us from a particular thing, and we have generalised it in abstracto, then our understanding may fancy various things about it, and we can add to it many other attributes abstracted from other things. But it is impossible to do this without a prior knowledge of the things themselves from which these abstractions have been made. Once, however, it is assumed that this idea [of God] is a fiction, then all other ideas, that we have must be fictions no less. If this is so, whence comes it that we find such a great difference among them? For as regards some we see that it is impossible they should exist; e.g., all monsters supposed to be composed of two natures, such as an animal that should be both a bird and a horse, and the like, for which it is impossible to have a place in Nature, which we find differently constituted; [N2N1] other ideas may, but need not, exist; whether, however, they exist or do not exist, their essence is always necessary; such is the idea of a triangle, and that of the love in the soul apart from the body, &c., so that even if I at first thought that I had imagined these, I am nevertheless compelled afterwards to say that they are, and would be, the same no less even if neither I nor anybody had ever thought about them. They are, consequently, not merely imagined by me, and must also have outside me a subjectum other than myself, without which subjectum they cannot be. In addition to these there is yet a third idea, and it is an only one; this one carries with it necessary existence, and not, like the foregoing, the mere possibility of existence: for, in the case of those, their essence was indeed necessary, but not their existence, while in its case, both its existence and its essence are necessary, and it is nothing without them. I therefore see now that the truth, essence, or existence of anything never depends on me: for, as was shown with reference to the second kind of ideas, they are what they are independently of me, whether as regards their essence alone, or as regards both essence and existence. I find this to be true also, indeed much more so, of this third unique idea; not only does it not depend on me, but, on the contrary, he alone [N2N2] must be the subjectum of that which I affirm of him. Consequently, if he did not exist, I should not be able to assert anything at all about him; although this can be done in the case of other things, even when they do not exist. He must also be, indeed, the subjectum of all other things.

   From what has been said so far it is clearly manifest that the idea of infinite attributes in the perfect being is no fiction; we shall, however, still add the following:

   According to the foregoing consideration of Nature, we have so far not been able to discover more than two attributes only which belong to this all-perfect being. And these give us nothing adequate to satisfy us that this is all of which this perfect being consists, quite the contrary, we find in us a something which openly tells us not only of more, but of infinite perfect attributes, which must belong to