Herbart's psychology was preceded by a philosophy of nature, which construes matter from attraction and repulsion, and declares an actio in distans impossible.

How far Newton himself adhered to the narrow meaning of mechanism (motion from pressure and impulse), is evident from the fact that, though he is often honored as the creator of the dynamical view of nature, he rejected actio in distans as absurd, and deemed it indispensable to assume some "cause" of gravity (consisting, probably, in the impact of imponderable material particles).