152 THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 



on their own account. Such truths are the &quot; eter 

 nal truths &quot; of current discussion. They naturally 

 and properly add to their intellectual and to their 

 practical worth a certain esthetic quality. They 

 are interesting- to contemplate, and their con 

 templation arouses emotions of admiration and 

 reverence. To make these emotions the basis of 

 assigning peculiar inherent sanctity to them apart 

 from their warrant in use, is simply to give way 

 to that mood which in primitive man is the cause 

 of attributing magical efficacy to physical things. 

 Esthetically such truths are more than instrumen 

 talities. But to ignore both the instrumental and 

 the esthetic aspect, and to ascribe values due to an 

 instrumental and esthetic character to some in 

 terior and a priori constitution of truth is to make 

 fetishes of them. 



We may not exaggerate the permanence and 

 stability of such truths with respect to their re 

 curring and prospective use. It is only relatively 

 that they are unchanging. When applied to new 

 cases, used as resources for coping with new diffi 

 culties, the oldest of truths are to some extent 

 remade. Indeed it is only through such applica 

 tion and such remaking that truths retain their 

 freshness and vitality. Otherwise they are rele 

 gated to faint reminiscences of an antique tradi 

 tion. Even the truth that two and two make four 

 has gained a new meaning, has had its truth in 



