"The question is that of the transmission of force. We see two bodies at a distance from each other exert a mutual influence on each other's motion. Does this mutual action depend on the existence of some third thing, some medium of communication, occupying the space between the bodies, or do the bodies act on each other immediately, without the intervention of anything else?"
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_Action_at_a_Distance