x AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION. 



In the first edition the principle was raised of individual bodies 

 being alone the object of Natural History, and that in the next place 

 they are to be arranged according to the combination of their organs 

 or component parts, and by no means after the division or mere 

 form of a single organ ; that, for example, a special organ or ana- 

 tomical system lies as the basis of each Vegetable and Animal class, 

 and that there must be therefore as many classes, and no more, as 

 there are cardinal organs present upon which to found them. On 

 that account it was absolutely necessary first of all to find out these 

 cardinal organs, and determine their rank ; and, in so doing, it was 

 shown that organs and classes are at bottom of one kind, and that 

 the development by stages or degrees of the embryo is the antetype 

 of that of the classes ; furthermore, that each class takes its starting- 

 point from below, and consequently that the classes do not stand 

 simply one above the other, but fall into a series of mutually parallel 

 ranks. Now it is this which, along with the doctrine of the infu- 

 sorio-vesicular form of the organic mass, and that touching the 

 signification of parts, as to how e. g. the blossom is the repetition 

 of the vegetable axis or trunk, the cephalic bones that of the ver- 

 tebrse, the feet of the branchiae, and the maxillae in turn of the feet, 

 appears to me the cardinal point attained in my Philosophy of 

 Nature ; more especially, because it was these very doctrines which 

 were first of all, i. e. before all the others, comprehended and almost 

 universally adopted. The inorganic matters and activities pass, 

 however, parallel also to the anatomical formations and functions ; 

 and that this is the case too with the spiritual or psychical func- 

 tions the philosophy of the future will probably be in the condition 

 to point out. 



The reader will not expect to find that the serial arrangement of 

 Plants and Animals, with their parallelism, has been in every instance 

 thoroughly attained. The present is but a sample of how we are to 

 proceed in our desire of obtaining a Natural system. With such an 

 attempt one has something to change every year, and I have in the 

 present translation made some alterations in, respect to the Mol- 

 lusca and Fishes. In this sense then it is my wish that the book 

 may be regarded, and accordingly received with its due amount of 

 indulgence. 



LORENZ OKEN. 



