The same intelligence which the complexities of modern life demand and create easily prompts not only to the cynicism which declares that “all men are liars” but to a moral ennui which cries, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” Benjamin Kidd who understood the need for ultra-rational sanctions in social life better than most sociologists put the problem of modern society in these words: “The great problem with which every progressive society stands confronted is: How to retain the highest operative ultra-rational sanctions for those onerous conditions of life which are essential to its life, and at one and the same time to allow freest play to those intellectual forces which, while tending to come into conflict with such sanctions, contribute nevertheless to raise to the highest degree of social efficiency the whole of its members.”[17] To develop the wisdom of serpents while they retain the guilelessness of doves is the task which faces the religio-moral forces if they would aid in the moral regeneration of society. It may be that such a task is too difficult for the resources of this or any generation of the immediate future and that painful experience must first prove other strategies inadequate. Meanwhile even the possibility of future usefulness of religion demands the largest possible measure of immediate detachment from the unethical characteristics of modern society. If religion cannot transform society, it must find its social function in criticizing present realities from some ideal perspective and in presenting the ideal without corruption, so that it may sharpen the conscience and strengthen the faith of each generation. CHAPTER VII TRANSCENDING AND TRANSFORMING THE WORLD