(8:6) Those who are ignorant of true causes,
make complete confusion, think that trees might talk just as well as men,
that men might be formed from stones as well as from seed; and imagine
that any form might be changed into any other. (7) So, also, those who
confuse the two natures, divine and human, readily attribute human passions
to the deity, especially so long as they do not know how passions originate
in the mind. (8:8) But, if people would consider the nature of substance,
they would have no doubt about the truth of [vii] . (9) In fact, this
proposition would be a universal axiom, and accounted a truism. (10) For,
by substance, would be understood that which is in itself, and is conceived
through itself, that is, something of which the conception requires not the
conception of anything else; whereas modifications exist in something
external to themselves, and a conception of them is formed by means of a
conception of the thing in which they exist. (8:11) Therefore, we may have
true ideas of non-existent modifications; for, although they may have no
actual existence apart from the conceiving intellect, yet their essence is
so involved in something external to themselves that they may through it be
conceived. (12) Whereas the only truth substances can have, external to
the intellect, must consist in their existence, because they are conceived
through themselves.
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