This, then, is the first note we make of the gospel of Spinoza. But if any one thinks that the sacred word "gospel" is here misused, and that such teaching is fatal to piety, let him turn to the 104th Psalm and read, from Spinoza's point of view, the cosmic vision of the Hebrew seer. True, we can think no longer of the supernatural carpenter who works on "the beams of his chambers" above, or of the mythical engineer who digs deep in the darkness to "lay the foundations of the earth." For that is poetry, appealing by concrete images to the emotions. But it does not bind the intellect to a literal interpretation; and we are no longer tormented by vain efforts to reconcile with infinite impossibilities the half-human personality presented in poetic guise. So that the vision of the seer is now the suggestion to us of an infinite and eternal Being, whose attributes by modification take the innumerable shapes of sun, moon, and stars, and mountains and river, and tree and flower, and bird and beast, and man. And the winds that sweep and the floods that roll, and the rocky barriers that stand fast, and the rivers that wind among the hills, and the trees that flourish and the living societies that gather in fruitful places, the labourer in his vineyard, the sailor in his ship, all are in and of the one Eternal Being. Yet we echo not with less, but perhaps with more reverence, than the believers in a divine artisan, the words of the Psalmist: "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches." But if the thunder and the flaming fire and the sweeping flood seem discordant, they existed for the Psalmist as well as for us, and they do not seem to have troubled him. At this point, therefore, we need only say that Spinoza's religion of one divine Substance, whose unity in variety is holy, ought to stir within us with not less fervour, at least the spirit of the Psalmist's concluding prayer: "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more." [Sidenote: Spinoza no Materialist,] [Sidenote: Notwithstanding his Attribution of "Extension" to God.] [Sidenote: Criticism by Sir F. Pollock.] [Sidenote: Changes In Theories of Matter since Spinoza's time.]