288 Theories Treating of Inheritance 
single definite point of the organism, which is always the 
same, both when the parent soma exerts its influence upon 
the germ substance which it contains, and also when the 
latter exerts upon the new organism its own determina- 
tive ontogenetic influence. 
It is therefore our task now to investigate in the 
following chapter whether the centroepigenetic hypothesis 
already set forth above really satisfies all these conditions 
and is consequently capable of really affording the ade- 
quate explanation for the inheritance of acquired 
characters, which we seek, 
