Ethics, Part I, Proposition 6
One substance cannot be produced by another substance.
Proof
It is impossible that there should be in the universe two substances with an identical attribute, i.e. which have anything common to them both (Prop. ii.), and, therefore (Prop. iii.), one cannot be the cause of the other, neither can one be produced by the other. Q.E.D.
Corollary
Hence it follows that a substance cannot be produced by anything external to itself. For in the universe nothing is granted, save substances and their modifications (as appears from Ax. i. and Deff. iii. and v.). Now (by the last Prop.) substance cannot be produced by another substance, therefore it cannot be produced by anything external to itself. Q.E.D. This is shown still more readily by the absurdity of the contradictory. For, if substance be produced by an external cause, the knowledge of it would depend on the knowledge of its cause (Ax. iv.), and (by Def. iii.) it would itself not be substance.
Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata), translated from the Latin by R. H. M. Elwes.
First published in The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, vol. II (London: George Bell and Sons, 1884).
This translation is out of copyright in the United States, where it was published in 1884, and wherever the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less; its translator died in 1892.
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