"Essence becomes matter in that matter's reflection is determined by relating itself to essence as much as it does to the formless indeterminate. Matter, therefore, is the simple identity, void of distinction, that essence which is, with the determination that it is, the other of form. Hence it is the proper base or substrate of form, since it constitutes the immanent reflection of the determinations of form,or the self-subsistent term, to which such determinations refer as to their positive subsistence.
If abstraction is made from every determination, from every form of a something at all, matter is what is left over. Matter is the absolutely abstract."
- G.W.F. Hegel, Science of Logic
