The problem for Spinoza is easier than it is for one who has no belief in the ultimate goodness of the universe. Spinoza thinks that if you see your misfortunes as part of the concatenation of causes stretching from the beginning of time to the end, you will see that they are only misfortunes to you, not to the universe, to which they are merely passing discords heightening an ultimate harmony. I cannot accept this; I think that particular events are what they are, and do not become different by absorption into the whole. Each act of cruelty is eternally part of the universe; nothing that happens later can make that act good rather than bad, or can confer perfection on the whole of which it is part.p. 580.

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