CHAPTER SEVEN 



THE CENTROEPIGENETIC HYPOTHESIS AND THE EXPLANA- 

 TION OF INHERITANCE AFFORDED BY IT. 



As we said at the end of the third chapter, when the 

 end of development is reached, and there comes with it a 

 cessation of the steady activation by the central zone of 

 new specific potential elements, there is also a cessation of 

 the perturbing action which that zone had up till then 

 exercised upon the dynamic equilibrium of each onto- 

 genetic stage; so that the organism attains at that 

 moment the final equilibrium of the adult state. But we 

 should note that a new perturbing influence can now 

 come into play, namely, the functional stimulus in the 

 widest sense with all its innumerable variations. 



In the same manner, we said, as the perturbing 

 action of the central zone had formerly upset the equili- 

 brium which was but just formed, and so provoked the 

 passage of the organism to a new ontogenetic state, so 

 now each lasting change of the functional stimulus by 

 disturbing the dynamic equilibrium of the adult state, will 

 induce another general distribution of nervous energy. 

 Consequently each cell of the entire organism or of cer- 

 tain portions of the organism will now be traversed by a 

 nervous flux which is specifically different from that be- 

 fore existing, and specifically different in different cells. 



In each nucleus of these cells, we continued, a par- 



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