 If this is all correct (a very big “if”!), then Garrett and Curley’s modal conclusions are both right, though neither tells the complete modal story. Something less than full-blown necessitarianism will be true in virtue of ways of conceiving objects that do not include their relations to the entire, infinitely large and complex range of other particular things. At the same time, full-blown necessitarianism will  also be true in virtue of ways of conceiving finite things that are maximally inclusive with respect to relations to the rest of the world. This middle ground provides an answer to Curley’s otherwise worrisome objection to the necessitarian interpretation: “If each particular feature of the universe, considered in itself, is contingent, then their totality is also contingent” (Curley 1988,  49).[17] This expansion of contingency from the part to the whole would be true only if the shift in the ways finite things are conceived did not sometimes entail a shift in their modal status. Although this is a very widespread essentialist assumption today, it is a false one according to this reading of Spinoza’s modal theory. Just as necessitarianism at the most expansive conceptual level does not jeopardize contingency at narrower levels, so too contingency at narrower levels need not bleed into the modal status of things conceived in the most expansive way.