INERTIA AS RELATED TO CONSCIOUSNESS 99 



not to breed, he wrote, " The vis inertia of 

 habit." * 



By functional inertia, then, character is unfolded 

 as the great " ground tone " of a life ; that some- 

 thing which in certain cases men of strong 

 character refuses to be acted on by the environment, 

 is deaf to her charming, blind to her attractions, 

 insensible to her touch. This is character, it is 

 the non-responsiveness that constitutes the " devoted 

 life," when once its possessor has started on any line 

 of action, he feels himself carried on by the in- 

 ertia of activity, by moral momentum. " There is 

 something in us," writes Mr. Stratton,f " that we 

 cannot attribute to mere environment an inner 

 stamp or character that makes some persons have 

 weight with us, while the behaviour of others takes 

 no hold." There is here a groping after functional 

 inertia. A little further on Mr. Stratton returns 

 to the idea ; he says : " The individual is not a 

 mere recipient . . . but has within him a power 

 which stands over against his environment . . . 

 now aiding and heightening its particular influ- 

 ence, and now resisting the suggestions which it 

 offers." } Both the concepts of affectability and 

 functional inertia are virtually present to the 

 author's mind in this passage. Of this I feel per- 

 fectly convinced, because in the same work Mr. 

 Stratton actually uses the term " inertia " in my 



* Life of F. Buckland, Bompas. (London: Smith, Elder, 1893.) 

 f G. M. Stratton, " Experimental Psychology," p. 223. 'Mac- 

 millan, 1903.) J Ibid,. p ? 224. 



