"Very good," said her father; "now, what is an inanimate object?"
"Any thing that does not possess animal life, or can not move at will."
"Very good again," said her father. "Now an apple is, of course, an
inanimate object; and therefore it could not move itself, and Sir Isaac
Newton thought that he would try to find out what power moved it."
"Well, then," said Lucy; "did he find that the apple fell, because it
was forced to fall?"
"Yes," replied her father; "he found that there was some force outside
of the apple itself that acted upon it, otherwise it would have remained
forever where it was, no matter if it were detached from the tree."
"Would it, indeed?" asked Lucy.
"Yes, without doubt," replied her father, "for there are only two ways
in which it could be moved--by its own power of motion, or the power of
something else moving it. Now the first power, you know it does not
have; so the cause of its motion must be the second."
"But every thing falls to the ground as well as an apple, when there is
nothing to keep it up," said Lucy.
"True. There must therefore be some power or force which causes things
to fall," said her father.
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