It can therefore be seen how we limit the horizon of our individual understanding. Spinoza entreats us again and again to improve our intellect in order to come to the understanding of the attributes of God. In speaking of the actual intellect, Spinoza refers to nothing else than the faculty by which we perceive things clearly. In order to understand Spinoza's doctrine of the attributes adequately, it is first of all necessary to know that each attribute is absolute in its own nature, and must be conceived through itself. Thus there is a marked distinction between the relative or finite conception of the attributes, and the infinite or absolute understanding of them.
Attributes are neither modifications of substance, nor creations of our subjective understanding.
The relative conception of the attributes cannot be the foundation of Spinoza's Ethics. Only the absolute understanding of the doctrine of the attributes helps us to realize that there is an adequate and perfect idea of God in us. And because this idea is adequate and perfect, we are able to understand the true nature of the two attributes, Thought and Extension in an absolute manner. In answer to the question as to how we are to know that there are more than two attributes, Spinoza's reply would be that the idea of God which is in us tells us that there must be an infinite number of attributes, although we are in contact with the modifications of only two of them. Despite the fact that the existential character of the other attributes is unknown to us, it follows nevertheless, since we are able to have a true idea of God, that we can infer their existence inasmuch as the existence of God and his essence are one and the same thing.