ty can no longer include the so-called justice that punishes and rewards within the concept of justice . . . (_105). If one were omniscient, one would be able to calculate each individual action in advance, each step in the progress of knowledge, each error, each act of malice. To be sure, the acting man is caught in his illusion of volition . . . [This illusion], his assumption that free will exists, is also part of the calculable mechanism (_106). When a misfortune strikes, we can overcome it either by removing its cause or else by changing the effect it has on our feelings . . .(_108). There are elements in each of these texts--e.g., the denial of free will, the rejection of the idea retributive justice, and the recognition of possibility of overcoming our emotional reactions rather than our external environment--which resonate with the sympathetic reader of Spinoza. And while, in later years, Nietzsche loses some of his positivistic fervor, we shall see that significant similarities are retained. They can be reduced to the proposition that *an unconditional affirmation of existence is prerequisite to the fullest expression of our essence*. Recall that Spinoza argues that the degree of blessedness which we attain is dependent on the quality of that which we love, pointing out that Strife will never arise on account of that which is not loved; there will be no sorrow if it is lost, no envy if it is possessed by another, no fear, no hatred--in a word, no emotional agitation, all of which, however, occur in the case of the love of perishable things . . . But love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, unmixed with any sadness. This is greatly to be desired, and to be sought with all our might (*TEI* 235). *From Spinoza's perspective, then, if we are to achieve blessedness, we must learn to love every aspect of that which *is*--which is, in the words of Kierkegaard, *the power that grounds us*. This includes ...
