348 Assimilation 
rent has upon the electric resonator with an equal period 
of vibration. And this becomes so much the more plaus- 
ible since Maxwell’s theory, of which it is scarcely 
necessary to remind any one, and which was wholly 
confirmed by the Hertzian experiments, has demonstrated 
the essential identity of these electric, induction oscilla- 
tions across the di-electric formed by the air, with light 
and heat vibrations in general. The only difference con- 
sists in the period of vibration which in both the latter is 
much more rapid than in the former. 
So we can understand how thermal energy, whether 
that which comes from the irradiation of the sun and 
from the outer world in general, or that which is de- 
veloped from chemical processes of decomposition. and 
oxidation taking place in the interior of the organism, 
can, in as far as it is composed of heat rays of the most 
different periods of oscillation, constitute the general 
external stimulus which activates indifferently all the 
vital processes of synthesis: 
Let us note that to each specific discharge, to the intra- 
nuclear oscillating as well as to the extra-nuclear func- 
tional there will correspond very definite substances of 
dissimilation, for the different specificities of the nervous 
currents can be due only to the decomposition of sub- 
stances likewise different. And even if the diversity of 
these extremely complex and unstable substances consists 
only in the different number and different mode of 
grouping of the same atoms of the principal elements 
which constitute all organic substance, nevertheless the 
respective substances of dissimilation to which each of 
these complex substances will give rise, will necessarily 
be different from one another. These substances of dis- 
similation, definite and peculiar for each specific dis- 
