198 
HAROLD’S DISCUSSIONS. 
Newton was not tlie first to get the idea that 
bodies fall to the earth because a force draws them, 
but he continued to think about it as any one else 
mio^ht have done. It was he who discovered the laws 
according to which this force acts, and applied them 
to the entire universe. I will state some facts to helj) 
us understand these laws. 
Every one has noticed that the larger the stone, 
the greater the lump of lead, or the more solid the 
block of wood, the more strongly it is drawn to the 
earth. On the earth we measure this force with 
scales and express the result in pounds. When w^e 
say that a horse weighs fifteen hundred pounds, we 
mean that it has matter enough in its body to be 
attracted by the earth to that extent. 
If we lay a magnet on the table with a piece of 
magnetized steel a short distance from it, the two will 
attract each other; and if the steel be close enough 
so that the attraction can overcome the friction, it 
will be drawn to the magnet. If a pendulum be sus¬ 
pended in a plain near a mountain, it will be drawn 
slightly from a vertical position toward the mountain, 
and were it free to move to the mountain it would do 
so, just as the steel moved toward the magnet. 
These illustrations are evidence of two forces 
which are quite different. Magnetism is active only 
in certain metals; gravity is active in all matter. 
There was the attraction of gravity between the mag¬ 
net and the steel as well as that of magnetism. Mag¬ 
netism is much less universal but much more intense 
than gravity. 
