Effects of Discharge or Activation 297 
adult stage preceding the acquisition of the new character. 
Then on account of an external influence acting at a given 
point A of this system, the specificity of the respective 
current was changed from i toi’. In consequence of that 
the whole circulatory system S, in order to assume a new 
state of dynamic equilibrium, transformed itself into a 
different system S’, in such a way that at another given 
point B, that of the central zone, the specificity of the re- 
spective current underwent a very definite corresponding 
variation from intensity i, to 141. If then there is now 
present in the embryo of the young organism the same 
circulatory system S of the parent organism, and if, on 
account of the activation of the specific potential element 
in question, there is produced at the same point B of this 
system, the same variation of specificity from intensity 
i, to i’1, it is evident—and we shall see later that a few 
facts from the inorganic world prove experimentally the 
general principle upon which our assertion rests—that 
there must follow the same change as before of the 
dynamic equilibrium of the general system from S to S’, 
and that, consequently, there will now be produced at 
the point A the same specific modification as before from 
itoi’. In this way the inheritance of acquired characters 
finds a most complete explanation. 
Let us note parenthetically, that nuclear somatization 
conceded, we must regard each of the substances forming 
the different specific potential elements of any nucleus as 
capable of gradually replacing the others by continual in- 
crease of its mass, when the respective specific current, on 
account of the incessant repetition always of only one and 
the same stimulus, passes very frequently through the 
nucleus. A nucleus thus somatized,—that is to say, one 
composed wholly of a single specific substance,—would 
