things . . . follow by the same necessity, and in the same way, as it follows from the nature of a triangle, from eternity to eternity, that its three angles are equal to two right angles.”39 What the laws of the circle are to all circles, God is to the world. Like substance, God is the causal chain or process,40 the underlying condition of all things,41 the law and structure of the world.42 This concrete universe of modes and things is to God as a bridge is to its design, its structure, and the laws of mathematics and mechanics according to which it is built; these are the sustaining basis,
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