INERTIA AS RELATED TO HEREDITY 73 



itary stature;"* and again, "in a complete theory 

 of heredity the stability of an organism has to 

 be regarded."| And once more, "the factor of 

 stability of type has to be reckoned with."! Now 

 it is worse than useless to attribute this stability of 

 type to affectability it is subversive of the most 

 elementary ideas both in biology and etymology. 

 Reversion to a type and the stability of a type, are 

 alike the result, of the possession of functional 

 inertia by the species a property resident in the 

 protoplasm of each member of the group. The 

 " fatality " of functional inertia as expressed in 

 reversion atavism is so well described by Dr. 

 Mercier that I cannot refrain from quoting a passage 

 in which, after alluding to atavism in animals, he 

 writes, " The tendency for the developing organism 

 to unfold after one particular manner and in con- 

 formity with one general type has been fixed by 

 transmission through so many generations, has 

 acquired such force of momentum in its long descent, 

 that the local and perhaps temporary influences 

 which produced in the parent a deviation from the 

 type are over-borne in the offspring by the steady 

 enduring massive pressure of its race-heredity." A 

 little later the parallel case of the plant is described : 

 (< Thus when a gardener has, with utmost pains 

 and skill, produced a new variety of plant-form, he 

 is often exasperated to find that in spite of all his 



* Francis Gallon, "Natural Inheritance," p. 31. (London: Mac_ 

 millan, 1889.) f Ibid. p. 193. % Ibid. p. 196, 



Mercier, " Sanity and Insanity," p. 151. 



