  It is demonstrated how all the mechanical equations of classical
electrodynamics (CEM) may be derived from only Coulomb's inverse square force
law, special relativity and Hamilton's Principle. The instantaneous nature of
the Coulomb force in the centre-of-mass frame of two interacting charged
objects, mediated by the exchange of space-like virtual photons, is predicted
by QED. The interaction Lagrangian of QED is shown to be identical, in the
appropriate limit, to the potential energy term in the Lorentz-invariant
Lagrangian of CEM. A comparison is made with the Feynman-Wheeler
action-at-a-distance formulation of CEM.
