OKEN, 



127 



they must be resolved into the Ur-ScJilcim:' A 

 few pages further on he offers his hypothesis of the 

 origin of man, which is entirely inconsistent with 

 any form of cell doctrine, when he says: " Man also 

 is the offspring of some warm and gentle seashore, 

 and probably rose in India, where the first peaks 

 appeared above the waters. A certain mingling of 

 water, of blood warmth, and of atmosphere, must 

 have conjoined for his production ; and this may 

 have happened only once and at one spot." When 

 we consider that this was allowed to stand in a 

 work translated in 1847, long after Buffon's, E. Dar- 

 win's, and Lamarck's speculations upon the origin 

 of man had been published, it shows that Oken was 

 not only a Greek survival as a thinker, but that he 

 entirely ignored the contemporary progress of sci- 

 ence in France and England. In another passage 

 he says, entirely oblivious as well of his Ur-Schlcim 

 as of his previous statements : " Man has not been ' 

 created, but developed, so the Bible itself teaches 

 us. God did not make man out of nothing, but took 

 an elemental body then existing — an earth-clod or 

 carbon; moulded it into form, thus making use of 

 water; and breathed into it life — namely, air — 

 whereby galvanism or the vital process arose." 



