Christian Thomas Kohl The Metaphysical Foundations of Buddhism and Modern Science

The story in detail is the history of modern physics, which lies beyond
the scope of this discussion. We merely require to understand the
contrast between the most general notions respectively underlying
Newtonian physics and modern physics. Newtonian physics is based upon
the independent individuality of each bit of matter. Each stone is
conceived as fully describable apart from any reference to any other
portion of matter. It might be alone in the Universe, the sole occupant of
uniform space. But it would still be that stone which it is. Also the stone
could be adequately described without any reference to past or future.
It is to be conceived fully and adequately as wholly constituted within
the present moment.
This is the full Newtonian concept, which bit by bit was given away, or
dissolved, by the advance of modern physics. It is the thorough-going
doctrine of 'simple location' and of 'external relations'. There was some
divergence of opinion as to the external relations. Newton himself was
inclined to construe them in terms of shock and of stress between
contiguous bodies. But his immediate followers, such as Roger Cotes,
added the notion of force at a distance. But either alternative was wholly
and completely a fact in the present, namely, the fact of that external
relation between two bits of matter either contiguous or distant. The
opposed doctrine of internal relations has been distorted by reason of its
description in terms of language adapted to the presupposition of
external relations of the Newtonian type. Even its adherents, such as