78 FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



vironment, whatever they may have been in a much 

 earlier period of ancestral history. Having been 

 evolved as adaptations related to affectability, 

 functional inertia of protoplasm perpetuates them 

 by making them to be inherited. The moment a 

 chick is hatched it picks up seed, the first time 

 a kitten sees a dog it is afraid,* the young bird shows 

 signs of fear the moment it sees the hawk, but shrinks 

 from no other bird,t the moment the child's lips 

 touch the nipple the movements of sucking begin. 

 This is hereditary, preadjusted disposition it is 

 inertial. No doubt it is by affectability that the 

 reflex actions appropriate to these various acts 

 occur, but the carrying over of the particular mole- 

 cular preadjustments from the previous generation 

 the transmitting intact the adaptation that is 

 inertial, it is the maintenance of a status quo ante. 

 One very striking instance of what I mean was 

 lately described to me by a Fifeshire gentleman who 

 is a very close observer of bees. He had been carry- 

 ing in a box from the hives up to his house two un- 

 hatched " queen-bees/' each in her cell ; and on 

 arrival indoors, opened the box to find one of the 

 queens in the act of being hatched ; thirty seconds 

 after, the second queen was hatched. Instantly, 

 and as it were without warning or premeditation, 

 the elder by thirty seconds, flew on the younger 

 sister and stung her to death through the thorax. 



* De Varigny, loc. cit. p. 225. 



f Lloyd Morgan, " Animal Behaviour," p. 49. (London : Arnold, 

 1900.) 



