I would be very surprised if we had any records about what "ordinary people" thought about the ultimate cause for gravitational attraction in the period you are talking about. It is not the sort of thing that people considered writing down for the most part, until relatively recently.

I would just note that your characterization of Aristotle's theory is not quite right. It is not "just what objects do." He saw it as a consequence of the natural motion of the kind of matter said objects were made up of. It is part of a larger theory of both matter and motion. You could characterize both Newton and Einstein's theories as being about "just what objects do" as well, but that wouldn't be the best way to explain them.

(Separately, Newton was not in the 19th century. He was active in the late-17th and early-18th centuries.)