Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path

172 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path

mentioned above—who do not call themselves material-
ists at all but who, from the point of view put forward in
thisbook, must be labeled as such. What matters is not
whether people claim not to be materialists because, for
them, the world is not limited to merely material existence.
Rather, what matters is whether they develop concepts that
are applicableonly to material existence. Those who say,
“Our action, like our thinking, is determined,” express a
concept that applies neither to action nor to existence, but
only to material processes. If they thought through their
concept to the end, they would have to think materialisti-
cally. That they do not do so is merely a result of the in-
consistency that so often comes from thinking that is not
carried through to the end. Today, we often hear that sci-
ence has abandoned nineteenth-century materialism. But
actually this is not true. It is simply that, at present, we of-
ten fail to notice that our ideas apply only to material
things. Nowadays, materialism is veiled; in the second half
of the nineteenth century, it showed itself openly. The
veiled materialism of the present is no less intolerant to-
ward a view that grasps the world spiritually than was last
century’s admitted materialism. But materialism today de-
ceives many into thinking that they can reject a worldview
involving spirituality because, after all, natural science
“has long since abandoned materialism.”