 Spinoza agrees with Hobbes, however, by ascribing political significance to hope. As he explains in the Theological-Political Treatise, the fact that people are governed by hope and fear makes them easy victims of superstition and false belief (Theological-Political Treatise, [1670] 2002: 389); however, good laws can also take advantage of this and motivate people by arranging outcomes such that they can be motivated by hope (Theological-Political Treatise, [1670] 2002: 439; see Gatens et al. 2021 for a discussion of the political significance of hope in Spinoza). The same importance he places on hope also underlies his social contract argument. Like Hobbes, he argues that the only reason why people remain faithful to the social contract or carry out the orders of a sovereign has to be found in their hope of obtaining a certain good this way (Theological-Political Treatise, [1670] 2002: 529). Even a people as a whole is always united by common hopes and fears (Political Treatise, [1675] 2002: 700), but hope rather than fear is dominant in the case of free peoples (ibid.). This leads Spinoza to proclaim hope and fear as the basis of political power in the Political Treatise ([1675] 2002: 686).