Before we enter into the discussion of this objection we must remark that it is scarcely fair to allege Newton’s view as contrary to _actio in distans_. For he neither requires a material contact of matter with matter nor a material medium of communication; he says, on the contrary, that the inanimate brute matter needs _the mediation of something else which is not material_; which amounts to saying that his inanimate brute matter must have all around a non‐material sphere of power, without which it would never reach any distant matter. This assertion, far from being a denial of _actio in distans_, seems rather to be a remote endeavor towards its explanation; and it may be surmised that, had Newton been as well acquainted with the metaphysical doctrine about the essential constituents of substance as he was with the mathematical formulas of mechanics, he would have recognized in his “inanimate brute matter” the potential constituent of material substance, and in his “something else which is not material” the formal constituent of the same substance and the principle of its operation. The only objectionable phrase we find in the passage now under consideration is that in which he describes action and force as _conveyed_ from matter to matter. But, as he explicitly maintains that this convection requires no material medium, the phrase, whatever may be its verbal inaccuracy, is not scientifically wrong, and cannot be brought to bear against the _actio in distans_. We therefore dismiss this part of the objection as preposterous, and shall at once turn our attention to Clarke’s argument, which may be reduced to the syllogistic form thus: “A body cannot act where it is not present either by itself or by its power. But _actio in distans_ is an action which would be exerted where the body is not present by itself, as is evident; and where the body is not present by its power, as there is no medium of communication. Therefore the _actio in distans_ is an impossibility.”