POST-STIMULANT AND POST-MORTEM ACTIVITY 63 



Post-stimulant phenomena are very numerous in 

 connection with the. central nervous system, both in 

 cells related to and those not related to consciousness. 

 The former activities will be dealt with in the 

 chapter on psychic inertia. Several writers on 

 Neurology recognise the latter, Dr. Mercier,* 

 for instance, writing of the metabolism of cells of 

 the nervous system, says : " Activities will not 

 suddenly cease ; " this is functional inertia, and it 

 is the post-stimulant expression of it : again the 

 same author writes of " some property analogous 

 to momentum" f i.e., katabolic inertia : but the 

 anabolic phase is equally before Dr. Mercier, for 

 early in his suggestive work he uses the expression, 

 " the resistance which the inertia of the lower 

 centres opposes to the disturbance of their equilib- 

 rium" J all these uses of the term I saw after I 

 had published my views. 



* Mercier, " Sanity and Insanity." Contemp. Science Series, 

 p. 270. (Walter Scott, 1890.) 



t Ibid. p. 183. I Ibid. p. 27, 



