Sages of India realized it by a perfect deductive process which descends on human consciousness by a transcendental chain of unbroken bona fide disciplic succession that material civilization is a temporary gigantic demonstration of a rabid process of sense gratification. The sense organs are given uncertain liberty to gratify their desires and the whole show of science education, trade, industry, economy and politics are but different spheres of activities in the realm of gratifying the senses.
Above these senses or sense-organs is a dymitric force which is subtler than the sense-organs and is known as the mind but acts in terms of thinking, feeling & willing. The empiric philosophers speculating on an imperfect process of induction, generally indulge intellectual feats without knowing that behind the mind there is human intelligence which is able to analyse the process of psychology but is unable to find out the ultimate force or spirit behind their intelligence.
So the spirit that conducts even intelligence is the primeval root of everything and there is an adjustment of spirit and matter as much as there is an adjustment of smoke & fire. The smoke is a conditional state of fire and therefore smoke is nothing but fire and yet we cannot compare smoke & fire on the same platform. Smoke emanates from fire but it is disturbing condition of fire. We need fire and not the smoke.