xv.), it exists solely in God, and solely through God can be conceived.

If therefore a mode is conceived as necessarily existing and infinite, it must necessarily be inferred or perceived through some attribute of God, in so far as such attribute is conceived as expressing the infinity and necessity of existence, in other words (Def.

viii.) eternity; that is, in so far as it is considered absolutely.

A mode, therefore, which necessarily exists as infinite, must follow from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, either immediately (Prop.

xxi.) or through the means of some modification, which follows from the absolute nature of the said attribute; that is (by Prop.