THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 153 



some degree remade, in the development of the 

 modern theory of number. If we put ourselves in 

 the attitude of a scientific inquirer in asking what 

 is the meaning of truth per se, there spring up 

 before us those ideas which are actively employed 

 in the mastery of new fields, in the organization 

 of new materials. This is the essential difference 

 between truth and dogma; between the living and 

 the dead and decaying. Above all, it is in the 

 region of moral truth that this perception stands 

 out. Moral truths that are not recreated in appli 

 cation to the urgencies of the passing hour, no mat 

 ter how true in the place and time of their origin, 

 are pernicious and misleading, i.e., false. And it 

 is perhaps through emphasizing this fact, embodied 

 in one form or another in every system of morals 

 and in every religion of moral import, that one 

 most readily realizes the character of truth. 



