A basic pair of categories of Marxist philosophy. The relation of matter and consciousness constitutes the basic question of philosophy. Matter is the objective reality which is independent of consciousness and can be reflected through consciousness. The sole property of matter is to be an objective reality. The category of matter of Marxist philosophy is the product of scientific abstraction and does not refer to some physical object. Engels said: “Matter as such is a pure creation of thought and an abstraction… Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted.” Ancient naïve materialism comprehended the origin of the world as one or several directly perceivable objects; for example, the Milesian School in ancient Greek held that water is the origin of heaven, earth and myriad things and the doctrine of the five elements (wuxing) in ancient China held that everything in the world is composed of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. The philosophers of modern metaphysical materialism regarded the atom as the smallest unit which constitutes all things, as the “bricks of the universe”, based on what the natural sciences knew at the time about the structure of matter. At the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, the scientific discoveries such as the electron and radioactive elements had a serious impact on the metaphysical materialist conception of matter. Idealism has distorted the new discoveries of natural sciences by claiming that “atoms has dematerialized”, “matter has disappeared”, “materialism has been refuted”. Lenin summarized the new achievements of natural sciences by summarizing the experience of previous materialist philosophical explorations, and gave a scientific definition of matter: “Matter is a philosophical category denoting the objective reality which is given to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed and reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them.” . . .
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