Vellanskii's scientific method completely corresponds 

 with the main principle of Naturphilosophie. "True knowledge 

 of nature and the essence of the human" could be, in his 

 opinion, achieved only by means of speculation and analogy. 

 Since all the bodies of organic and inorganic nature 

 completely correspond to each other, the mathematical relations 

 (line, circle, parabola and so on) as well as the physico- 

 chemical processes (magnetism, cheraism, and others) and the 

 geological elements (water, air, metals, and so on) should be 

 completely analogous to this corresponding formation of the 

 living organism. Vellanskii developed in detail the Natur- 

 philosophie idea that the organism is like the planet. 



Next Vellanskii turned to an entirely arbitrary analogy 

 of the organs of living creatures with geometric forms. It 

 is not necessary to stop at Vellanskii's examples illustrating 

 the analogy of the organs with inorganic bodies and geometric 

 concepts. It is necessary only to give examples of the 

 internal similarities among the organs of the animal organisms . 

 He wrote that : : 



Corresponding to three parts of the body — chest, 

 pelvis, and head— there are three pairs of extremities: 

 hands, legs, and jaws .... The lungs correspond to 

 the bladder in the pelvis; and in the head the nose is 

 the neural lung. The tongue is the head's intestinal 

 tract. Kidneys and the large intestine are related to 

 the genital system and comparable to the liver and 

 small intestine; and the sexual organs, male and 

 f onale, are equivalent to the swallowing organs. Hands 

 come from the chest which is formed separately as the 

 animal organ of movement . . . . It is composed of 

 seven chest ribs separated from the vertebrae and 

 connected with the breast bone. The radial and the elbow 

 bone, in essence, are two upper ribs of the chest which 

 are divided into five fingers corresponding to the five 

 lower ribs. The arm tassel is the chest cage turned 

 externally, since the chest cage is also comparable to 

 the hand tassel turned internally.* 4 



14. Ibid., pp. 37 - 46 



150 



