78 Hypothesis of Structure of Germ Substance 
all these different substances break up or decompose as 
soon as life has gone out of them. 
In conformity with the views of most biologists, we 
can assume that the hereditary mass, and therefore all 
the specific potential elements, are preserved and distrib- 
uted during what is called the resting stage, in the gran- 
ules of chromatin which are disposed like the beads of a 
rosary upon the nuclear reticulum; but during mitosis, in 
the chromosomes, and particularly in the little discs of 
chromatin which the chromatic filaments into which the 
nuclear reticulum and its granules contract, often present, 
superimposed upon one another and separated by inter- 
vening layers of linin. 
We must nevertheless note that this mode of dispo- 
sition of the different specific potential elements in the 
nucleus is of importance to us only in relation to nuclear 
division. For we must hold with the epigenesists, as we 
shall see soon, that this division always proceeds in a 
manner qualitatively the same. 
But this disposition is of absolutely no importance to 
us in relation to the effects which it will have upon the 
serial activation of these elements. From this latter 
point of view we can indeed suppose these elements to 
be scattered through the germinal nucleus and mixed 
with one another in any way whatever. 
For, as we shall see better later, the activation of 
every specific potential element in the proper ontogenetic 
stage, depends in no way upon its position in relation to 
the others, but rather on the condition that at this stage 
only its activation requires the doing of only a moderate 
amount of work—an amount which does not require more 
energy than the total quantity inherent in each element. 
Its activation in any other stage would require, on ac- 
