ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century some hoped that modern science would provide the foundations for a total world vision. Science provides elements that people use to furnish their worldview, but the influence on that worldview itself, on the worlds they live in and experience, is in most cases minimal. Scientification did not so much mean that science was the basis of a comprehensive philosophical vision as that science paid less and less heed to philosophical questions. The social acceptance of scientific findings has sometimes gone smoothly and sometimes encountered considerable obstacles. As research became more reductionist and materialistic over the course of the nineteenth century, spiritual interpretations of its results only gained in power and vitality. All kinds of ideas and practices sprang up that attempted to bridge the gap between the spiritual world as people wanted it to be and the material world as science showed it to them.
