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Having, in the first part, discoursed on God, and on the universal and infinite things, we shall proceed now, in the second part, to the treatment of particular and finite things; though not of all, since they are innumerable, but we shall only treat of those which concern man; and, in the first place, we shall consider here what man is, in so far as he consists of certain modes (contained in the two attributes, things and ideas, which we have remarked in God). I say of certain modes, for I by no means think that man, in so far as he consists of spirit, soul, or body, is a real substance. Because, already at the beginning of this book, we proved (1) that no real substance can have a beginning; (2) that one substance cannot produce another; and lastly (3), that there cannot be two like substances.
As man has not been in existence from eternity, is finite, and is like many men, he can be no real substance; so that all that he has of thought are only modes of the attribute thought which we have attributed to God. And, again, all that he has of form, motion, and other things, are likewise [modes] of the other attribute which is attributed by us to God.