12 FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



relative intensities conditions the character of the 

 particular manifestation at the moment response, 

 if affectability be the predominating condition, non- 

 response if functional inertia be the characteristic 

 state. Non-correspondence with the environment 

 is the keynote of this protoplasmic inertia, inde- 

 pendence of environment, disregard of stimulation, 

 inaccessibility to external influences, all insuscepti- 

 bilities, and limits set to powers of response. 



Just as the idea of a stimulus without the cor- 

 responding organism to act on is meaningless, so 

 conversely a property of protoplasm thought of as 

 unrelated to a stimulus is jejune ; or otherwise, 

 property and stimulus are so co-related that what 

 may be relatively to one stimulus a state of affecta- 

 bility, may be, at the same moment, to some other 

 stimulus one of inertia, and vice versa : and again, 

 what may be a state of affectability at one time to a 

 particular stimulus, may be one of inertia at another 

 time to the same stimulus. Affectability is, in 

 fact, a term for our conception of the relationship 

 between the living matter and that stimulus which 

 is causal in the manifesting of a response ; and 

 in one of its aspects, functional inertia is our con- 

 ception of such a relationship as leads to no 

 response ; and lastly, under its other aspect, func- 

 tional inertia is our conception of the relationship 

 whereby, after the stimulus has ceased to act, the 

 living matter continues to act. 



Biotonus or the biotonic state is the particular 

 result of the state at any given moment resulting from 



