Argument#6
Statement No. 6
Newton's apple: attraction and repulsion
Explanations and summaries are editorial material. Consult the source to verify the original wording.
Faithful reading
My Statement No. 6: This is the same point that, as we said, was based on Newton's guess. He saw the apple fall to the ground and took it as attraction. He raised his eyes and forgot it. He forgot the first idea and then regarded it as repulsion.
Easy explanation
This short statement continues the previous discussion. Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) is not giving a new experiment here. He is questioning how two different forces were being inferred from the same basic story.
The first part is simple: an apple is seen falling toward the ground. In the book's account, this is taken as a sign that something is pulling the apple toward the earth. A pull of this kind is called .
His objection begins with the link between the observation and the explanation. Seeing the apple fall is one event. If that event is used as the reason for saying there is attraction, then a different claim should need its own separate reason.
The line about Newton raising his eyes is a brief rhetorical way of describing a change of attention. Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) says that the first idea was then left behind and another idea was introduced.
That second idea is : a push, or a tendency to move away. In the immediate argument of the book, the complaint is that repulsion is now being treated as an explanation without a separate proof being shown in this short passage.
So the point is not merely about the words pull and push. The point is about consistency. If one observed fall is already explained by one cause, why move to another cause without showing what new observation requires it?
This is why Statement 6 connects closely with Statements 4 and 5 just before it. There, the book asks why both attraction and repulsion are needed and challenges the examples used to support repulsion. Statement 6 restates that concern in a very short form.
For clarity, this explanation is only unpacking the argument on these pages. It is not a full history of Newton and it is not a complete account of modern physics. Its purpose is to make Imam Ahmad Raza's logical objection easy to follow.
The first part is simple: an apple is seen falling toward the ground. In the book's account, this is taken as a sign that something is pulling the apple toward the earth. A pull of this kind is called .
His objection begins with the link between the observation and the explanation. Seeing the apple fall is one event. If that event is used as the reason for saying there is attraction, then a different claim should need its own separate reason.
The line about Newton raising his eyes is a brief rhetorical way of describing a change of attention. Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) says that the first idea was then left behind and another idea was introduced.
That second idea is : a push, or a tendency to move away. In the immediate argument of the book, the complaint is that repulsion is now being treated as an explanation without a separate proof being shown in this short passage.
So the point is not merely about the words pull and push. The point is about consistency. If one observed fall is already explained by one cause, why move to another cause without showing what new observation requires it?
This is why Statement 6 connects closely with Statements 4 and 5 just before it. There, the book asks why both attraction and repulsion are needed and challenges the examples used to support repulsion. Statement 6 restates that concern in a very short form.
For clarity, this explanation is only unpacking the argument on these pages. It is not a full history of Newton and it is not a complete account of modern physics. Its purpose is to make Imam Ahmad Raza's logical objection easy to follow.
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