Physico-Chemical Character of Cytoplasm 349 
charge, will in their turn afford, by their entire or partial 
oxidation, products of excretion and secretion quite 
definite and differing from one cell to another. These 
products, in their turn, thanks to their peculiar physico- 
chemical properties, will imprint upon the protoplasm or 
cytoplasm a corresponding physico-chemical character 
and a corresponding morphological structure. So it is 
conceivable how the ensemble of the mnemonic elements 
constituting a given nucleus can determine its own proto- 
plasm or cytoplasm both from the purely physico-chemical 
and from the properly morphological point of view. 
We arrive thus at a constant double correlation be- 
tween the cytoplasm, the species of nuclear excitation, 
and the substance of the nucleus. For the nuclear sub- 
stance will determine directly the specificity of the 
corresponding nervous current and its rhythm of charge 
and discharge; and this specificity of current thanks to 
the substances of dissimilation to which it will give rise, 
will determine the respective cytoplasm. Conversely, the 
specificity of the current or its peculiar rhythm of charge 
and discharge, once determined by the functional stim- 
ulus, will determine the substance of synthetization or 
nuclear substance, as also the substances of dissimilation 
of which the cytoplasm is constituted. 
Let us summarize what has been said. The specific 
potential elements which have presented themselves in the 
preceding chapter as specific elementary accumulators, . 
and at the beginning of this chapter as mnemonic ele- 
ments, appear now as specific vital elements, that is as 
the smallest possible particles of organic substance cap- 
able of life. At the same time the denominations 
potential element, and vital element, which might at first 
have appeared incompatible with each other, if the 
