SUMMARY 127 



of preserving the protoplasm from excessive activity, 

 whether it be physiological insusceptibility or a 

 disregard of environmental changes, or the establish- 

 ment of limits beyond which no stimuli are effective, 

 or in the institution of a slow rhythm for a very 

 rapid one necessarily tending to produce fatigue, or 

 in intermittent discharges in place of a continuous 

 discharge of energy necessarily tending to exhaustion. 



In the case of dried seeds, rotifers, &c., in " latent 

 life," the high degree of inertia towards any one 

 stimulus is a means of preserving the individual 

 from death and decomposition without at the same 

 time permitting the exhibition of vital activity 

 (cf. Hibernation and Narcolepsy in higher animals) : 

 it is a biological compromise. 



By its being the factor underlying the mechanism 

 of inheritance, habit, instinct, and unconscious .. 

 memory, functional inertia is as important as affect- 

 ability in educability and therefore in the theory and 

 practice of education. 



Finally, I have not introduced the conception of 

 functional inertia as a property of protoplasm into 

 Biology to complicate the theoretical aspect of 

 livingness ; on the contrary I have been repeatedly 

 assured by botanists, physiologists, pathologists, 

 psychologists, and educationists that my postulating 

 of this property had done distinct service as an 

 illuminating influence in their respective domains of 

 study. 



I was urged to put my views down more fully 

 and in a form more accessible than is possible 



