This view involves the denial of force as a cause, and the assertion that all we know about force is that the acceleration of one mass depends on that of another, as in mathematics a function depends on a variable; and that even Newton's third law of motion is merely a description of the fact that two material points determine in one another, without reciprocally causing, opposite accelerations.
No real advance in metaphysics can take place, and natural science itself is in some danger, until the true history of the evidences of the laws of mechanical force is restored; and then it will soon appear that in the force of collision what we know is not material points determining one another's opposite accelerations, but bodies by force of impenetrable pressure causing one another to keep apart.
The Galileo-Newton theory of motion is that, relative to a suitably chosen base, and with suitable assignments of mass, all accelerations of particles are made up of mutual (so-called) actions between pairs of particles, whereby the two particles forming a pair have accelerations in opposite directions in the line joining them, of magnitudes inversely proportional to their masses.
The total acceleration of any particle is that obtained by the superposition of the component accelerations derived from its association with the other particles of the system severally in accordance with this law.
It is defined by the property that relative to it all accelerations of particles correspond to forces.
