The concept of matter in modern atomic theory

In biology the idea of matter as something passive has been abandoned in favour of the idea that matter has the capacity of self-activity. In modern physics too, matter functions more as an agent with which the experimenter has a relation than as passive material which he can handle as he likes. So in both fields of study the antithesis between idealism and materialsm has been given up, so that the relation instead of the difference between man and nature became the starting point of scientific inquiry