FUNCTIONAL INERTIA AS LATENT PERIODS, c. 33 



(Factors 2 and 3 are regarded as underlying the 

 oxygen-hunger of the cells of the respiratory centre.) 

 I may perhaps say that I saw vol. ii. of Professor 

 Schafer's text-book after my first paper was written. 



Here we have the explicit statement that this 

 intermittency of discharge from the respiratory 

 centre could be accounted for on the supposition 

 that. the "molecular processes were endowed with 

 inertia " : but, as Gad has regarded this endowment 

 or property in the light of a drawback, the supposi- 

 tion is not made. 



I must frankly say that I see no reason to regard 

 the possession by protoplasm of inertia as any more 

 of a " drawback/' than the possession by non-living 

 matter of the same property. If we are logically 

 constrained to attribute inertia to protoplasmic 

 molecules, no preconceived idea about its being a 

 drawback must interfere with our reasoning. Of 

 course in the light of my investigations into these 

 phenomena, I cannot but hold that this functional 

 inertia does exist, and in the case before us is one of 

 the causal factors of the intermittency or rhythm. 



Before disposing of the case of the rhythm of the 

 respiratory centre, I would like to allude to the 

 relationship between constant stimuli and response. 

 If affectability were the only protoplasmic property, 

 then " constant stimuli" should only give rise " to 

 constant activity." But this is precisely what in a 

 number of cases does not happen constant stimuli 

 giving rise to rhythmic or at least intermittent 

 responses. 



3 



