Why do we say "What goes up must come down"?

Meaning:

However high something rises, eventually it has to come back down.

Background:

This expression is sometimes used in a literal way, but is usually used metaphorically to describe, among other things, power and prices.

The general consensus seems to be that this proverb is a reference to Newton's 2nd law, but sources differ on when it originated. Some place it in the 1870s; but, it seems that it dates back earlier than that, as the earliest source BookBrowse was able to find is a letter reprinted in Hints to my Countrymen, a rambling work published in 1826 by Theodore Sedgwick II (1780-1839), an American lawyer.

.... As my work went on, she looked at the bark of the peach trees, and after admiring it a good deal, remarked, "Do you know that the American Revolution sprung out of a peach stone?" The story as related by her, being still fresh in my mind, I am enabled to give it to you accurately.

_______ lived at _______ about the year 1760. His peaches and strawberries were said to be the finest in all that country. Even among his genteel visitors, his practice was, whenever peaches were presented to them, to place an empty plate upon the table, with a request that they would there deposit the stones. One of his neighbours having received the compliment of a dsih of strawberries, preseved the seeds, and in this way, as it was said, they became so common in the neighbourhood, that he swore that gentlemen ought to have better manners, and not suffer his strawberries to get among vulgar people, and that no man but a gentleman was ever fit to eat either peach or strawberry.

Early in September, when the sun was very hot and the peach in that state that one must have a lock-jaw if he does not desire to eat it, a boy, in the neighbourhood, observing from a little eminence, hard by the old gentleman's garden, that the lemon cling-stones were just in the state I have mentioned, climbed over the wall, in a dark night, and had hardly placed himself in the crotch of the tree, when he was discovered and pursued. At that instant, that portion of the peach which was intended, not for the stomach but for the earth, took a wrong direction, and the boy was not only caught but choked. The gardener held fast to his prey; and the outcry having roused the lion in his den, brought him also into the garden. The boy was seized by the heels, and turned up-side down: this, however, proved unsuccesful; but in an instant, upon changing his position, the violent efforts of nature accomplished her object, and down went the lemon cling-stone, leaving the unhappy boy for a moment, nearer dead than alive, but in safe custody. Here was a dilemma to the owner of the peach, the stone down and not up. When one boy among a dozen throws a stone into the air, crying out, that "what goes up must come down," it is very likely so to happen. But the claimant of the stone swore, that what went down, should come up, and that his lemon-clings should never take root in the garden of a man who lived in a hovel--that potatoes were good enough for father and son, and actually forced it down his throat. One man may lead a horse to water, but it takes twenty to make him drink; nature refused to fly in the face of her own laws; the boy's throat was too small, and the stone too heavy. Another dose was administered, but with little effect. The boy was then dismissed. Time rolled on, and the people, in their leisure hours, began to talk of liberty and the revolution. The old gentleman took the wrong side, if the unfortunate be the wrong side, still deceiving himself with the idea that lemon clings were designed to grow for gentlemen only, within brick walls. If life be spared, boys in time will grow to men; and the story is, that in that part of the country, one of the first liberty poles was erected by this self-same boy, within a hundred yards of the very tree on which grew the forbidden fruit, with a picture at full length hung on high, of the tree, the boy choking, and the gardener at his side, forcing down the tartar-emetic. The revolution caused these brick walls to change owners, which, with some few repairs, are still standing, and in the possesion of one, who, full of the spirit that belongs to a free country, would be happy to see every man in the land able to eat as many lemon-clings as potatoes.

Your affectionate brother,

N. D______.

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