Only the mind contemplating it can be real. These thinkers took little interest in the constitution of matter, for, to them, it had little significance in the realm of realities. Matter was also believed to be the potential state of what is more real, the latency of the form, a stage in the process of development. The world of matter was held to be not a static being, but a movement, a march towards the actualisation of pure form. Matter, again, was thought to consist of sleeping centres of energy or force.
Minds are such centres risen to consciousness, while matter is their unevolved state.
Others felt that matter is an attribute of reality which appears as matter from one viewpoint and as thought from another. It is interesting to note that present-day science has slowly risen from the perception of solid matter, by a gradual improvement of the instruments of its knowledge. The world which was supposed to be consisting of the gross elements and various kinds of objects was reduced to a few simple chemical elements which were thought to be incapable of further simplification. But these elements were again analysed, and, with Dalton, came the theory that these consisted of minute granular substances or atoms. The number of the atoms was supposed to correspond to that of the chemical elements, of which the former are the constituents.