But how has it been possible for these institutions, which in reality have their roots in the absolute religious truth to a far greater extent than the materialistic conception of life has today, to have been superseded by materialistic science? This is exclusively due to the fact that people are in the process of developing their intelligence, that is the ability to observe, to carry out research and to analyse. With the growth of this ability, people became more and more attuned to accepting only what they could understand and explain by means of this ability. As religious preaching was never designed as research material for the intelligence, people became sceptical and doubtful, and lost faith in the entire religious side of life. And as they were able to acquire with the intelligence truly realistic knowledge or facts, even if they were of only a material nature, then the objectives of the intelligence temporarily became people's more or less fixed points. Everything beyond the area that could be researched with the intelligence was regarded as worthless. And people became materialists.