Oken's main work, MANUAL OF NATURPHILOSOPHIE , 

 begins with a statement of theological questions because, 

 in his opinion, "Naturphilosophie is the science of eternal 

 conversion of God intb the universe. "2 Discussing, from 

 Naturphilosophie' s point of view, the meaning of positive and 

 negative sizes and ciphers, Oken defined the essence of deity 

 as follows: God is absolute self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is 

 nothing, and, being nothing, "self-knowledge is God."^ Such 

 a beginning does not foreshadow anything good. However, later 

 on Oken's work included a discussion of a number of wonderful 

 suppositions which were to be confirmed, in one degree or 

 another, by the subsequent development of the biological 

 sciences. Among these is the belief that the basic substance 

 of the organic world is carbon, which by uniting with water 

 and air forms mucous-like fluid. The primary fluid appeared, 

 according to Oken, in the sea, and from this primary mucous - 

 like fluid all living creatures were formed. Oken described 

 organic development in the following manner: the primary spots 

 or vacuoles of mucus, which he named infusoria, can be combined 

 in different ways and therefore give rise to the various higher 

 organisms. Oken thus acknowledged the development of the 

 organic world from the simplest creatures up to complex man. 

 This development of the world of living creatures takes place, 

 he thought, in the development of organisms into more complex 

 creatures during their lives. 



In Oken's examples it is possible to foresee a range from 

 protoplasm and cell to the cellular structure of higher 

 organisms, to the evolution of the organic world, and 

 finally to the biogenetic law according to which the process 

 of individual development repeats the stages through which 

 the species had passed in evolution. Oken reached that 

 understanding, not by means of direct study of the facts, 

 however, but by intellectual methods, the essential aspects 

 of which are instinct and argument by analogy. By way of 

 setting up an analogy, Oken established an entirely imaginary 

 classification of living creatures, by dividing the animal 

 world into intestinal, vessel, respiratory, and meat animals, 

 the latter of which (to which he related the vertebrates) he 



2. LCorenz) Oken, LEHRBUCH DER NATURPHILOSOPHIE, I 

 (1809) , p. vii. 



3. Ibid . , p. 14. 



144 



