Respected Friend, --You ask me if we have need of
experience,
in order to know whether the
definition of a given
attribute is true.
To this I answer, that we never need
experience,
except in cases when the existence of the thing
cannot be inferred from its
definition, as, for instance, the
existence of modes
(which cannot be inferred from their
definition); experience
is not needed, when the
existence of the
things in question is not distinguished from their
essence,
and is therefore inferred from their
definition. This can
never be taught us by any
experience, for experience
does not teach us any essences
of things; the utmost it can do is
to set our mind thinking about definite
essences
only. Wherefore, when the existence of
attributes
does not differ from their
essence, no
experience is capable of
attaining it for us.
To your further question, whether things and their
modifications are eternal truths, I answer: Certainly. If you ask me,
why I do not call them eternal truths, I answer, in order
to distinguish them, in accordance with general usage, from
those propositions, which do not make manifest any particular
thing or modification of a thing; for example, nothing
comes from nothing. These and such like propositions are, I
repeat, called eternal truths simply, the meaning merely
being, that they have no standpoint external to the mind, &c.
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