  Having argued his case that true motion consists in motion with respect to absolute space, and thus having dealt to his satisfaction with the metaphysics of motion, Newton turns in the final paragraph of the Scholium to epistemological strategies available on his account. On an Aristotelian or Cartesian account, one can directly observe the allegedly absolute motion of a body if both it and its immediate surroundings are visible. In contrast, because the parts of absolute space are not directly accessible to the senses, it is very difficult, Newton confesses,  to ascertain the true motion of individual bodies and to discriminate them in practice from the apparent motions. “Nevertheless,” he remarks in a rare moment of wit, “the situation is not entirely desperate.” Evidence is available in part from apparent motions, which are the differences of true motions, and in part from the forces, which are the causes and effects of true motions.  