Comparison with Phonograph and Telephone 301 



is, in fact, if the expression be allowed, a true centro- 

 epigenesis. The needle placed at the center of the 

 membrane repasses through all the stages through which 

 it had passed when the sentence was spoken; and each of 

 these stages was only the total effect of the repercussion 

 upon this point of all the extremely complex vibrations 

 called forth in the membrane by external influences, in 

 this case the vibrations in the air. Since the needle, one 

 single point of the dynamic system, repeats thus the same 

 identical series of specific movements which were before 

 produced at this point by the concurrence and union of all 

 the complex movements of the system, these successive 

 specific movements of this one point are thereby again 

 decomposed into all the same successive complex modes 

 of the entire dynamic system, in this case constituted by 

 the extremely complex vibrations of the membrane. 



Let us suppose, moreover, that it were possible to 

 interpose in an ordinary telephone wire transmitting a 

 series of variations of the electric current a complex ac- 

 cumulator capable of receiving the current and of return- 

 ing it after a certain time just as it was in its successive 

 variations. Then the whole series of complex dynamic 

 systems, which were formed by the successive complex 

 vibrations of the membrane receiving the spoken words 

 could be reproduced, just as at the receiving station, after 

 any interval whatever, exactly as with the phonograph. 

 Well, the role which centroepigenesis attributes to the 

 germinal substance is fundamentally nothing else than 

 that it forms a similar complex accumulator. 



Finally it may appropriately be noted here, that this 

 comparison with the phonograph permits us to make still 

 more definite and clear all that we stated at the end of 

 the fourth chapter, namely that the centroepigenetic 



