74 FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



exertions, a large proportion, the majority, it may 

 be the whole of his seedlings, will revert to the 

 original form." " The accumulated momentum of the 

 developmental forces . . . bears down all oppo- 

 sition to their progress in the wonted direction." 

 Here the very term momentum is used and momen- 

 tum is inertia of mass in motion. We have merely 

 not to read into this passage the notion that these 

 things are only analogies, but, to arrive at the truth^ 

 have just to admit that they are due to the property 

 of functional inertia in the protoplasm of living 

 beings whether animal or vegetable. ' Reversion," 

 says Professor Ribot,* " to the physical or mental 

 type is therefore the result of natural laws, and 

 by no means of a mysterious or occult influence." 

 Here functional inertia is expressed as an in- 

 susceptibility towards all conditions tending to 

 make the type alter, the " conservative tendency," 

 the " fatal force " of philosophical embryol- 

 ogists. 'The fatal force of the law of regression 

 to the race type " is the expression used by H. F. 

 Osborn.f 



Now the force of a law must operate upon some 

 property ; laws, forceful or otherwise, convey no 

 properties or powers for action. In the same strain 

 writes E. G. Gardiner, J u It is thus evident that 

 the plasm is very conservative and difficult to 



* Ribot, " Heredity," p. 380. (London : H. S. King and Co., 1875.) 

 t H. F. Osborn. "Evolution and Heredity," "Wood's Holl 

 Lectures," 1890. 



J E. G. Gardiner, " On the Origin of Death," Ibid. p. 116. 



