It now seems somewhat quaint to see the empiricists speak about the qualities of space while being unable to make sense of Newton's attempt to mimic the perspective changes accomplished by the original heliocentric astronomers but then again they seem entirely happy with the story they conjured up in the early 20th century.

"It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motion of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that absolute space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions which are the differences of the true motions " Newton

The whole ideology of apparent/true is skewed even if it is framed as absolute/relative space and motion for the shift to heliocentricity and a moving Earth accounting for observations didn't segregate by apparent motions and true motions but simply assigned relevance to the motions of the planets seen from a moving Earth based on relative speeds between a faster moving Earth and the slower moving outer planets.

Mathematicians are unlikely to appreciate the perspective changes Newton tried to introduce by double modelling the same observation where he would assign significance to retrogrades as geocentric and motions seen from the Sun as heliocentric -

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...retrograde.jpg

"For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct,..." Newton

The followers of Newton have been barking up the wrong tree for centuries in assuming Newton was describing 'space' what all he was doing was chopping up the antecedent astronomical insights to suit himself and his agenda by waving loosely at the predictive nature of astronomy.

Like a pyramid built on its apex the whole empirical narrative was going to collapse or descend into a look of meaningless voodoo even when electromagnetic influences were begging for attention in respect to rotation and especially orbital motion of the planets around the Sun and the solar system turning through the galaxy along with all the other solar systems.

This is genuine history and not manufactured history to serve the current batch of academics.