CHAPTER VI 



THE GENESIS OF FUNCTIONAL INERTIA IN THE 

 INERTIA OF THE NON-LIVING 



IT is long since workers in the field of physics attri- 

 buted inertia to the molecules of matter : inertia is 

 assumed to belong to them as much as it does to 

 masses, so that in the realm of the non-living we 

 have molar inertia and molecular inertia. But a 

 study of molecular physics has compelled such an 

 experimentalist as Professor J. C. Bose to attribute 

 affectability to non-living substance. That is to say, 

 by using certain kinds of wires and certain kinds of 

 solutions under appropriate stimuli (torsions, radiant 

 energy, &c.), this worker obtains responses, in these 

 cases alterations of E.M.F. (production of electric 

 current) between two points of the wire or two 

 portions of the solution under investigation. 



Working in this fashion, Professor Bose obtained 

 latent period (to the physicists, latency in response 

 is known as " lag."), staircase effects, summation of 

 effects, post-stimulant effects, the phenomena of 

 fatigue, diphasic variation, effects of an optimum 

 temperature and of poisons, all on absolutely non- 

 living matter. 



Some of these phenomena are clearly due to molec- 



