ise. 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.]

Spinoza's maintenance of extension as one of the two infinite divine
attributes cognizable by us has, with a certain amount of plausibility,
been urged as a note of materialism. And this reproach has been
supported by reference to his insistence that in man the body and the
soul are only two different aspects of the same thing; for to him the
body is a finite Mode of God's infinite attribute of extension and the
soul a finite Mode of God's infinite attribute of thought, while both
are manifestations of the one eternal divine Substance. Still, if in any
way we are to regard God as extended, it seems impossible to avoid the
inference that we regard Him as identified with matter, or at least the
possibility of matter. Sir Frederick Pollock has admitted that this is a
weak point in Spinoza's philosophy,[16] and mars its symmetry. But,
being more concerned with, his religion, I am content to point out that
such an objection was much more effective in Spi