So they will pursue their questions from cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of God — in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance. - Benedictus de Spinoza

whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived

...Spinozism conquers a place in contemporary philosophy, no longer simply as an historical index of reference but as an operative paradigm. This occurs because Spinozism always represents a full stop in the critique of modernity, for it opposes a conception of the collective subject, of love and the body as powers of presence to the conception of the subject-individual, of mediation and the transcendental, which inform the concept of the modern from Descartes to Hegel and Heidegger. Spinozism is a theory of time torn away from purposiveness, the foundation of an ontology conceived as a process of constitution. It is on this basis that Spinozism acts as the catalyst of an alternative in the definition of the modern. But why should one deprecate a centuries-old position of radical refusal of the forms of modernity by calling it by the feeble name of 'alternative'? [...] Certain contemporary authors have felicitously anticipated our definition of Spinoza's anti-modernity. Thus Althusser: "Spinoza's philosophy introduced an unprecedented theoretical revolution into the history of philosophy, probably the greatest philosophical revolution of all time, to the point that we can regard Spinoza as Marx's only direct ancestor, from the philosophical standpoint." Why? Because Spinoza is the founder of an absolutely original conception of praxis without teleology, because he thought the presence of the cause in its effects and the very existence of structure in its effects and in presence.

We can conceive of various kinds of democracy. But my intention is not to treat of every kind, but of that only, "wherein all, without exception, who owe allegiance to the laws of the country only, and are further independent and of respectable life, have the right of voting in the supreme council and of filling the offices of the dominion."