THE PROPERTIES OF PROTOPLASM 15 



predominant, continue to anabolise, that is, to 

 maintain the functional status quo ante. 



As a concrete example we might take the case of 

 an animal resting or very sleepy ; it receives a 

 stimulus tending to wake it, if affectability be 

 predominant it will awake, but if functional inertia, 

 it will remain sleepy. We might speak of this 

 latter as anabolic inertia or the inertia of anabolism. 

 Taking the complementary case, the wakeful 

 animal ; it receives a stimulus tending to calm it, 

 to put it to sleep, that is, a positive anabolic stimulus ; 

 if affectability predominate it will become less 

 restless, if functional inertia it will continue alert 

 and wakeful, that is, the status quo is maintained, 

 but in this case activity is the result of the inertia 

 which might be called katabolic or the inertia of 

 katabolism. 



Several authors, without going to the root of the 

 matter, have used the term " inertia " or " resist- 

 ance " in connection with the behaviour of living 

 beings. Thus the late Sir Michael Foster * wrote 

 " inertia or laziness " in Nature, June 22, 1893, 

 and Loew f uses the expression :< the different 

 degrees of resistance of protoplasm " which is 

 surely the exact opposite of affectability. Professor 

 Mosso speaks of " the inertia felt in the muscles of 

 the legs after a long walk " + and more lately Dr. 



* Foster, Nature, vol. xlviii. p. 178. 

 t Loew, P finger's Archiv., 1885, vol. xxxv. p. 509. 

 t Mosso, "Fatigue," translated by Dr. Drummond, p. 227. 

 /Sonnenschein, 1904.) 



