Virtue, Power, Happiness, Acquiescence

Spinoza conceives 'Virtue' as the performance of action determined by Rational Knowledge.  Furthermore, on his analysis, Pleasure signifies an increase in Power (III, xi), and Virtue and Power are identical (IV, def. viii), from which it follows that Virtue and Happiness are one and the same, a thesis not to be confused with 'Virtue is its own reward', which implies a separation of Virtue and Happiness, as Cause and Effect.  Now, as he explains in the long Note in II, xlix, Happiness sufficiently overrides, i. e. "tranquillizes", both the expectation of any reward for Virtue, as well as any concern about adverse fate.  Thus, in this strain of the Ethics is the possibility of a reconciliation of Empowerment and Acquiescence, an otherwise problematic relation in his system, as has been previously discussed--the former pertains to the performance of an action, while the latter pertains to its possible implications.  Now, this derivation bypasses the idea of a disembodied Mode, which initiates the deduction of the idea of Acquiescence in the sequence from V, xxii-vii.  But, given that the traditional Theological value of that idea is to provide the occasion for divine reward or punishment, i. e. an occasion which is implicitly unnecessary on the basis of the identity of Virtue and Happiness, jettisoning the idea disrupts nothing essential in the Ethics.