419:, which appeared in that and the following years, he sought to bring his different doctrines into mutual connection, and to "show that the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms are not to be arranged arbitrarily in accordance with single and isolated characters, but to be based upon the cardinal organs or anatomical systems, from which a firmly established number of classes would necessarily be evolved; that each class, moreover, takes its starting-point from below, and consequently that all of them pass parallel to each other"; and that, "as in chemistry, where the combinations follow a definite numerical law, so also in anatomy the organs, in physiology the functions, and in natural history the classes, families, and even genera of minerals, plants, and animals present a similar arithmetical ratio." The
618:
566:, he first publicly stated that thirty years before the date of that publication he had discovered the secret relationship between the vertebrae and the bones of the head, and that he had always continued to meditate on this subject. The circumstances under which the poet, in 1820, narrates having become inspired with the original idea are suspiciously analogous to those described by Oken in 1807, as producing the same effect on his mind. A bleached skull is accidentally discovered in both instances: in Oken's it was that of a deer in the Harz forest; in Goethe's it was that of a sheep picked up on the shores of the Lido, at
219:
522:(1745–1821). By Oken it was applied chiefly in illustration of the mystical system of Schelling—the "all-in-all" and "all-in-every-part." From the earliest to the latest of Oken's writings on the subject, "the head is a repetition of the whole trunk with all its systems: the brain is the spinal cord; the cranium is the vertebral column; the mouth is intestine and abdomen; the nose is the lungs and thorax; the jaws are the limbs; and the teeth the claws or nails."
803:
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380:, he stumbled on the blanched skull of a deer, picked up the partially dislocated bones, and contemplated them for a while, when it suddenly occurred to him, "It is a vertebral column!" At a meeting of the German naturalists held at Jena some years afterwards, Professor Kieser gave an account of Oken's discovery in the presence of the grand duke, which is printed in the
492:, and soon afterwards he was appointed ordinary professor in the same university. In 1832, on the proposal by the Bavarian government to transfer him to a professorship in a provincial university of the state, he resigned his appointments and left the kingdom. He was appointed in 1833 to the professorship of natural history in the then recently established
329:) whence all larger organisms fashion themselves or are evolved. Their production is therefore nothing else than a regular agglomeration of Infusoria—not, of course, of species already elaborated or perfect, but of mucous vesicles or points in general, which first form themselves by their union or combination into particular species."
407:(1808). In this work he lays it down that "organism is none other than a combination of all the universe's activities within a single individual body." This doctrine led him to the conviction that "world and organism are one in kind, and do not stand merely in harmony with each other." In the same year he published his
578:
very idea for its subject. It is incredible that Oken, had he adopted the idea from Goethe, or been aware of an anticipation by him, should have omitted to acknowledge the source—should not rather have eagerly embraced so appropriate an opportunity of doing graceful homage to the originality and genius of his patron.
368:. He selected for the subject of his inaugural discourse his ideas on the "Signification of the Bones of the Skull," based on a discovery of the previous year. This lecture was delivered in the presence of Goethe, as privy councillor and rector of the university, and was published in the same year, with the title,
577:
at Göttingen in 1806, knew nothing of this unpublished idea or discovery of Goethe, and that Goethe first became aware that Oken had the idea of the vertebral relations of the skull when he listened to the introductory discourse in which the young professor, invited by the poet to Jena, selected this
456:
In this journal appeared essays and notices on the natural sciences and other subjects of interest; poetry, and even comments on the politics of other German states, were occasionally admitted. This led to representations and remonstrances from the governments criticized or impugned, and the court of
504:
All of Oken's writings are deductive illustrations of an assumed principle, which, with other philosophers of the transcendental school, he deemed equal to the explanation of all the mysteries of nature. According to him, the head was a repetition of the trunk—a kind of second trunk, with its limbs
411:, in which he advanced the proposition that "light could be nothing but a polar tension of the ether, evoked by a central body in antagonism with the planets, and heat was none other than a motion of this ether"—a sort of vague anticipation of the doctrine of the "correlation of physical forces."
549:
the idea was not only revived but worked out for the first time inductively, and the theory rightly stated, as follows: "The head is not a virtual equivalent of the trunk, but is only a portion, i.e. certain modified segments, of the whole body. The jaws are the 'haemal arches' of the first two
279:
of 1802 Oken sketched the outlines of the scheme he afterwards devoted himself to perfecting. The position advanced in that work, to which he continued to adhere, is that "the animal classes are virtually nothing else than a representation of the sense-organs, and that they must be arranged in
414:
In 1809 Oken extended his system to the mineral world, arranging the ores, not according to the metals, but according to their combinations with oxygen, acids and sulphur. In 1810 he summed up his views on organic and inorganic nature into one compendious system. In the first edition of the
557:
conception of the nature of the head, the chance of appropriating it seems to have overcome the moral sense of Goethe—unless indeed the poet deceived himself. Comparative osteology had early attracted Goethe's attention. In 1786 he published at Jena his essay
348:, 1774), but he did not see its application as evidence of a general law. Oken showed the importance of the discovery as an illustration of his system. In the same work Oken described and recalled attention to the corpora Wolffiana, or "primordial kidneys."
509:
anatomy with the progress made by other cultivators of that philosophical branch of the science. The idea of the analogy between the skull, or parts of the skull, and the vertebral column had been previously propounded and ventilated in their lectures by
242:(1762–1814), who, acknowledging that Kant had discovered the materials for a universal science, declared that all that was needed was a systematic coordination of these materials. Fichte undertook this task in his "Doctrine of Science" (
323:), in which he maintained that "all organic beings originate from and consist of vesicles or cells. These vesicles, when singly detached and regarded in their original process of production, are the infusorial mass or protoplasma (
562:, showing that the intermaxillary bone existed in man as well as in brutes. But not a word in this essay gives the remotest hint of his having then possessed the idea of the vertebral analogies of the skull. In 1820, in his
488:. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was at the outset avowedly organized after the German or Okenian model. In 1828 Oken resumed his original humble duties as privatdocent in the newly established
911:
538:(1769–1832) availed himself of the extravagances of these disciples of Schelling to cast ridicule on the whole inquiry into those higher relations of parts to the archetype which Sir
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and other appendages; this sum of his observations and comparisons—few of which he ever gave in detail—ought always to be borne in mind in comparing the share taken by Oken in
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332:
A year after the production of this treatise, Oken developed his system one stage further, and in a volume published in 1806, written with the assistance of
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906:
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Oken's lectures at Jena were wide-ranging, and were highly regarded at the time. The subjects included natural philosophy, general natural history,
403:
of man, of animals and of plants. The spirit with which he grappled with the vast scope of science is characteristically illustrated in his essay
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The vertebral theory of the skull had practically disappeared from anatomical science when the labours of Cuvier drew to their close. In Owen's
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496:. There he continued to reside, fulfilling his professional duties and promoting the progress of his favourite sciences, until his death.
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384:, or "proceedings,” of that meeting. The professor stated that Oken told him of his discovery when journeying in 1806 to the island of
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in Kieser's collection, which he disarticulated for that purpose. Kieser displayed the skull, its bones marked in Oken's handwriting.
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340:, he demonstrated that the intestines originate from the umbilical vesicle, and that this corresponds to the vitellus or yolk-bag.
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364:(1749–1832), and in 1807 Oken was invited to fill the office of Extraordinary Professor of the Medical Sciences at the
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311:, or mammals, in which all the organs of sense are present and complete, the eyes being movable and covered with lids.
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256:(1775–1854). Oken built on Schelling's work, producing a synthesis of what he held Schelling to have achieved.
452:
Isis, eine encyclopädische
Zeitschrift, vorzĂĽglich fĂĽr Naturgeschichte, vergleichende Anatomie und Physiologie
209:
Grundriss der
Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der Sinne, mit der darauf gegrĂĽndeten Classification der Thiere
207:(unsalaried lecturer), and shortened his name to Oken. As Lorenz Oken, he published a small work entitled
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means. This attempt, which was merely sketched out by Fichte, was further elaborated by the philosopher
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211:(1802). This was the first of a series of works which established him as a leader of the movement of "
200:
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427:, or court-councillor, and in 1812 he was appointed ordinary professor of the natural sciences.
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192:
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accordance with them." Consequently, Oken contended that there are only five animal classes:
720:
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
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846:
493:
489:
450:
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8:
293:, or fish, those animals in which a true tongue makes, for the first time, its appearance
388:. On their return to Göttingen, Oken explained his ideas by reference to the skull of a
299:, or reptiles, in which the nose opens for the first time into the mouth and inhales air
238:(1724–1804) had applied to epistemology and morality. Oken had been preceded in this by
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or resign his professorship. He chose the latter alternative. The publication of
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484:, which was realized in the following year, when the first meeting was held at
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743:. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 55–57.
726:
539:
344:(1735–1794) had previously claimed to demonstrate this fact in the chick (
267:(1767–1847), and published in Stuttgart by Hoffman between 1839 and 1841.
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In it he extended to physical science the philosophical principles which
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Vaguely and strangely, however, as Oken had blended the idea with his
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534:, but presented the facts under the same transcendental guise; and
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at Weimar was prohibited. Oken made arrangements for its issue at
438:
191:, and studied natural history and medicine at the universities of
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305:, or birds, in which the ear for the first time opens externally
567:
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Beiträge zur vergleichenden
Zoologie, Anatomie, und Physiologie
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372:. With regard to the origin of the idea, Oken narrates in his
315:
In 1805 Oken made a further advance in the application of the
30:
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In 1816 Oken began publication of his well-known periodical,
227:
188:
55:
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Academic staff of the Ludwig
Maximilian University of Munich
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473:, and this continued uninterruptedly until the year 1848.
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segments; they are not limbs of the head" (p. 176).
270:
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the first idea of the annual general meetings of the
405:
Ueber das
Universum als Fortsetzung des Sinnensystems
600:is used to indicate this person as the author when
547:
Archetype and
Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton
482:
Society of German
Natural Scientists and Physicians
825:
581:In 1832, Oken was elected a foreign member of the
754:Oken, Lorenz; Walchner, Friedrich August (1833).
922:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
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246:), whose aim was to construct all knowledge by
902:Academic staff of the University of Göttingen
753:
376:that, walking one autumn day in 1806 in the
409:Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, &c.
917:Academic staff of the University of Zurich
757:Allgemeine Naturgeschichte für alle Stände
632:. Vol.1–8 . Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1833-1843
630:Allgemeine Naturgeschichte für alle Stände
261:Allgemeine Naturgeschichte für alle Stände
708:
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542:(1804–1892) called "general homologies."
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638:University and State Library DĂĽsseldorf
530:(1818), richly illustrated comparative
136:(1 August 1779 – 11 August 1851) was a
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370:Ueber die Bedeutung der Schädelknochen
259:Oken produced the seven-volume series
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351:
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518:(1765–1844), and in the writings of
499:
461:called upon Oken either to suppress
360:of Göttingen had reached the ear of
319:principle in a book on generation (
271:New system of animal classification
13:
663:Category:Taxa named by Lorenz Oken
573:It may be assumed that Oken, as a
230:). Old picture postcard from 1880.
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583:Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
857:19th-century German male writers
813:Brief biography and bibliography
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29:
772:International Plant Names Index
430:
423:procured for Oken the title of
927:18th-century German scientists
867:19th-century German zoologists
862:19th-century German biologists
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277:Grundriss der Naturphilosophie
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897:University of WĂĽrzburg alumni
892:University of Freiburg alumni
804:Works by or about Lorenz Oken
668:
417:Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie
16:German naturalist (1779–1851)
476:In 1821 Oken promulgated in
356:The reputation of the young
158:
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645:. Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1843
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526:(1781–1826) in his folio
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336:(1779–1862), entitled
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105:University of WĂĽrzburg
101:University of Freiburg
887:People from Offenburg
877:German ornithologists
760:. Stuttgart: Hoffman.
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512:Johann von Autenrieth
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263:, with engravings by
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821:Max Planck Institute
795:Works by Lorenz Oken
494:University of Zurich
490:University of Munich
346:Theoria Generationis
203:, where he became a
199:. He went on to the
591:author abbreviation
445:frontispiece (1817)
334:Dietrich von Kieser
254:Friedrich Schelling
882:German taxonomists
872:German naturalists
817:Virtual Laboratory
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366:University of Jena
352:University of Jena
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847:1779 births
564:Morphologie
507:homological
378:Harz forest
321:Die Zeugung
134:Lorenz Oken
87:Nationality
35:Lorenz Oken
23:Lorenz Oken
841:Categories
777: Oken
669:References
622:Thierreich
532:craniology
471:Rudolstadt
401:physiology
386:Wangerooge
285:Dermatozoa
141:naturalist
729:(1911). "
382:Tageblatt
326:Urschleim
291:Glossozoa
181:Offenburg
177:Bohlsbach
159:Biography
149:biologist
52:Bohlsbach
657:See also
555:a priori
431:Journal
421:Lehrbuch
317:a priori
297:Rhinozoa
249:a priori
197:WĂĽrzburg
193:Freiburg
145:botanist
819:of the
815:in the
806:at the
737:(ed.).
724::
649:by the
636:by the
486:Leipzig
425:Hofrath
397:zoology
275:In the
224:Ortenau
185:Ortenau
173:OkenfuĂź
60:Germany
733:". In
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624:, 1838
602:citing
568:Venice
459:Weimar
390:turtle
303:Otozoa
169:German
151:, and
138:German
118:Fields
91:German
79:ZĂĽrich
613:Works
228:Baden
189:Baden
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58:(now
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596:Oken
478:Isis
467:Isis
463:Isis
443:Isis
433:Isis
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