XIV. Aesthetic Education

On the other hand, I like to tell those who are willing to listen that I prefer a person with a materialistic concept of the world—one who is nevertheless capable of the spiritual activity of thinking—to a theosophist who, though striving toward the spiritual world, falls back on materialistic images. Materialists are mistaken, but even their thinking contains spirit—real spirit. It is “diluted” and abstract, but spirit nevertheless. And this way of thinking compels people to enter the realities of life. Therefore I have found materialists who are richer in spirit than those who are anxious to overcome materialism but do so in an entirely materialistic way. It is characteristic of our time that people absorb spirit in such diluted forms and can no longer recognize it. The most spiritual activity in our time, however, can be found in technological innovation, where everything arises from spirit—human spirit.