Mrs. B. Never.
Caroline. The reason that a heavy body falls quicker than a light one, is, I suppose, because the earth attracts it more strongly.
Mrs. B. The earth, it is true, attracts a heavy body more than a light one; but that would not make the one fall quicker than the other.
Caroline. Yet, since it is attraction that occasions the fall of bodies, surely the more a body is attracted, the more rapidly it will fall. Besides, experience proves it to be so. Do we not every day see heavy bodies fall quickly, and light bodies slowly?
Emily. It strikes me, as it does Caroline, that as attraction is proportioned to the quantity of matter, the earth must necessarily attract a body which contains a great quantity more strongly, and therefore bring it to the ground sooner than one consisting of a smaller quantity.
Mrs. B. You must consider, that if heavy bodies are attracted more strongly than light ones, they require more attraction to make them fall. Remember that bodies have no natural tendency to fall, any more than to rise, or to move laterally, and that they will not fall unless impelled by some force; now this force must be proportioned to the quantity of matter it has to move: a body consisting of 1000 particles of matter, for instance, requires ten times as much attraction to bring it to the ground in the same space of time as a body consisting of only 100 particles.
Caroline. I do not understand that; for it seems to me, that the heavier a body is, the move easily and readily it falls.