Such is the conclusion to which we are led by the application of the principle dynamists themselves admit, namely that an effect bears the impress and character of the cause which produces it. If then dynamists from the fact of the activities of bodies are justified in making the induction that active substances must exist, we also are equally justified in making the inference, from the fact of extension the principle of inertia and passivity that there is in bodies a second constitutive element, very closely united with the first but one which is essentially passive. Secondly, the passivity of matter, we maintain, is just as manifest as its activity. For all the bodies in the universe stand to one another in the relations of agent and patient. Action at a distance is a physical impossibility Meaning of this Statement.
Distance here means an absolute vacuum.
The question proposed here is whether when two bodies are separated from one another by an interval void of all reality they can exercise a real influence upon each other. This problem allows of a two fold interpretation 1. Our opinion is that there are undeniable facts to prove the physical impossibility of such activity, but that up to the present there has been discovered no convincing proof of its metaphysical impossibility. The idea of transitive activity neither implies nor excludes the notion of immediate contact. The effect is wholly in the recipient subject which occupies a position outside the agent.