Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
4. Reason, Science and Yoga
Fragment ID: 260
See largest or earliest found fragment here
Sri Aurobindo — Unknown addressee
October 16, 1931
There1 is no need to put “the” before “quality” – in English that would alter the sense. Matter is not regarded in this passage as a quality of being perceived by sense; I don’t think that would have any meaning. It is regarded as a result of a certain power 
and action of consciousness which presents forms of itself to sense perception and it is this quality of sense-perceivedness, so to speak, that gives them the appearance of Matter, i.e. of a certain kind of substantiality inherent in themselves – but in fact they are not self-existent substantial objects but forms of consciousness. The point is that there is no such thing as the self-existent Matter posited by nineteenth century Science.
1 This explanation is apropos of the following passage in The Yoga and Its Objects (1968 Edition), p.13:
“Matter itself, you will one day realise, is not material, it is not substance but form of consciousness, guṇa, the result of quality of being perceived by sense-knowledge.”
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Other publications: