ABSTRACT
This chapter evades the pitfall and simplifies the discussion by saying that Matter is a symbol which enables us to refer conveniently to the whole class of entities commonly known as 'material objects'. It considers what we mean by the term 'material object'. It then examines and analyses the factual situations in which material objects would commonly be said to appear, or of which they form part. The chapter makes a short digression on a matter of terminology, and ascertains to what the symbol 'material object' refers. The truth of the matter is that there is not the smallest justification for talking about the thing-itself, the Ding. It is purely a piece of 'gratuitous metaphysics', as Russell puts it in substantially this connexion. The matter is important, because Cf. Eddington's great powers as a mathematical physicist and his gift of picturesque exposition, which sometimes ran away with him.
