How New Elements Are Deposited 103 
ited in the nuclear substance of the central zone. The 
permanent change of the functional stimulus will thus 
have as its result, in so far as the species is concerned, 
only the simple addition of a new specific potential ele- 
ment to the germ substance. 
We must therefore now study in what way this new 
element behaves during the ontogenesis of the succeeding 
organism. But this investigation will form the object of 
one of the next chapters. 
After we have thus brought to a conclusion this short 
review of the most important processes, which according 
to our view, if they do not exactly prove the centroepi- 
genetic hypothesis, yet make it most probable, we now pass 
to the following chapter, which will afford as stated still 
another proof, even though a quite indirect one, for this 
hypothesis. For in showing that while a whole series of 
facts compels us to reject simple epigenesis, and a whole 
series of other phenomena compels us to reject preforma- 
tion, it will make it seem very probable that a hypothesis 
which is able to bring both series of phenomena into 
accord must come close to the truth. 
