H2 FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



What is melancholia but a great diminution 

 of affectability coupled with an abnormal increase 

 of psychic inertia ? For, as Professor Ribot * 

 writes, ' the special mark of the pure type of 

 apathetic is inertia; " that is to say, it is not merely 

 a diminution of affectability. On the physical 

 side it is well known that the bodily functions of 

 melancholies become exceedingly depressed, little 

 bile is secreted, constipation is the rule, all is 

 stagnant, remiss, inert. 



Again the " insane impulses " so powerful, so 

 whimsical, so sudden in their exhibition can scarcely 

 be regarded as due to environment. Rather than 

 examples of affectability they would be cases of 

 what Ribot alludes to in connection with a slightly 

 different yet closely allied activity as " desire 

 anterior to all experience, it acts as a blind force, 

 it is a vis a tergo, it must necessarily act at once."f 



Finally, innate ideas, if they exist, inasmuch as 

 they are inherited and anterior to experience, must 

 be related to psychic inertia and not to psychic 

 affectability. It is fortunately not my duty to 

 decide whether they exist or not, but if they do, 

 the metabolic mechanism constituting their physi- 

 cal substratum cannot be very different from that 

 underlying any of the other inherited psychic 

 capabilities, tendencies, aptitudes, or possessions. 

 My point at this present moment is, that innate 

 ideas, like all other innatenesses, not being ex hypothesi 



* Ribot, " Psychology of Emotions," Contemp. Science Series, 

 1897, p. 389. | Ibid. p. 442. 



