INERTIA AS RELATED TO CONSCIOUSNESS 93 



same principle of explanation : ' There is a ten- 

 dency to undervalue the succeeding weight of the 

 pair ... an explanation offered is that . . . 

 the motor organs are still in some degree of excite- 

 ment . . . when the second impulse to lift occurs, 

 hence more innervation is employed than is in 

 tended, and the weight is judged to move more 

 easily." * 



All these allusions to psychic inertia are partial 

 compared with those contained in a lecture by 

 Michael Faraday to a society in London long ago 

 defunct known as the " City Philosophical Society. "f 



Faraday became a member of this Society in 

 1813, and in 1818 he delivered a lecture to it called, 

 " Observations on the Inertia of the Mind." 



I first saw his biography in 1903, and on reach- 

 ing p. 57 I seemed there to have the sanction for 

 my views of one of the greatest workers in 

 modern science Michael Faraday. His biographer 

 evidently thought this lecture of some importance, 

 as he fortunately gives several pretty full quotations 

 from it. " There is a power in natural philosophy 

 of an influence universal and yet withal so obscure 

 in its nature, so unobtrusive, that for many years 

 no idea of it existed .J It is called inertia . It 

 tends to retain every body in its present state, and 

 seems like the spirit of constancy impressed upon 



* C. S. Sherrington in " Text-book of Physiology." Edited by 

 Schafer, vol. ii. p. 1023. 



f Bence Jones, " Life of Faraday," p. 57. London : (Longmans, 

 1870.) $ Ibid. p. 268. The italics are Faraday's. 



