...I am not so well read in Hobbes or Spinoza, as to be able to say what were their opinions in this matter [the life after death]. But, possibly, th… - Benedictus de Spinoza

In the reproach that Hegel will make to Spinoza, that he ignored the negative and its power, lies the glory and innocence of Spinoza, his own discovery. In a world consumed by the negative, he has enough confidence in life, in the power of life, to challenge death, the murderous appetite of men, the rules of good and evil, of the just and the unjust. Excommunication, war, tyranny, reaction, men who fight for their enslavement as if it were their freedom — this forms the world in which Spinoza lives. The assassination of the De Witt brothers is exemplary for him. Ultimi barbarorum. In his view, all the ways of humiliating and breaking life , all the forms of the negative have two sources, one turned outward and the other inward, resentment and bad conscience, hatred and guilt. "The two archenemies of the human race, Hatred and Re­morse." He denounces these sources again and again as being linked to man's consciousness, as being inexhaustible until there is a new consciousness, a new vision, a new appetite for living. Spinoza feels, experiences, that he is eternal.

Deus sive Natura

I always carry the Ethics of Spinoza with me. [Original in German: Ich führe, die Ethik von Spinoza immer bei mir; er hat die Mathematik in die Ethik gebracht, so ich in die Farbenlehre, das heißt: da steht nichts im Hintersatz, was nicht im Vordersatz schon begründet ist.]