es for himself to help preserve his being, or whatever Nature provides for him without any effort on his part, all this is provided for him solely by the divine power, acting either through human nature or externally to human nature. Therefore whatever human nature can effect solely by its own power to preserve its own being can rightly be called God's internal help, and whatever falls to man's advantage from the power of external causes can rightly be called God's external help. And from this, too, can readily be deduced what must be meant by God's choosing, for since no one acts except by the predetermined order of Nature-- that is from God's direction and decree--it follows that no one chooses a way of life for himself or accomplishes anything except by the special vocation of God, who has chosen one man before others for a particular way of life (89-90). The happiness and peace of the man who cultivates his natural understanding depends not on the sway of fortune (God's external help) but on his own internal virtue (God's internal help) [111]. This is hard medicine, but in my opinion it constitutes the only philosophically consistent position that still allows us to make sense out of the tradition. It remains for us to show how it does so, but first we must relate Spinoza to Nietzsche. Despite significant dissimilarities between Nietzsche and Spinoza--in both philosophy and temperament--Nietzsche often takes positions that are strikingly similar to his predecessor's.{7} In *Human, All Too Human*--written during his so called "positivistic period"--we find Nietzsche taking the following positions: We don't accuse nature of immorality when it sends us a thunderstorm, and makes us wet: why do we call the injurious man immoral? Because in the first case, we assume necessity, and in the second a voluntarily governing free will. But this distinction is in error (_102). The man who has fully understood the theory of complete irresponsibili...
