Newton's First Law of Motion is, in my opinion, a reiteration of his definition of "inherent force" -- which was the discovery of Galileo. Law 2 of Motion relates precisely Newton's definition of "impressed force" to the change in motion that it causes -- namely that the change in motion is directly related to the impressed force. This is a highly simple relationship -- thankfully. We note that when Newton speaks of change in "motion" in his laws, he is referring to quantity of motion, which he states in his second definition is the product of both the mass and velocity of a body. Newton's principles seem to me to be "meta-mechanical", which is perhaps why the ancients placed so much emphasis on the study of mechanics in understanding nature. In other words, we may substitute the more general notion of any state of being on the physical plane for the notion of a "body" -- and say that any state of being has its own inertia -- the second law then states that any change in a state of being requires a force in order to manifest a change in its state, and that the degree of change in state is directly proportional to the force applied.
Newton's three laws of motion are ethereal in their simplicity -- they form a "constitution" upon which the "country" of science may be built.
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