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OKEN, LORENZ (1779-1851)
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See also:OKEN, LORENZ (1779-1851) , See also:German naturalist, was See also:born at Bohlsbach, See also:Swabia, on the 1st of See also:August 1779. His real name was Lorenz Ockenfuss, and under that name he was entered at the natural See also:history and medical classes in the university of See also:Wurzburg, whence he proceeded to that of See also:Gottingen, where he became a privat-docent, and abridged his name to Oken. As Lorenz Oken he published in 1802 his small See also:work entitled Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der Sinne, and der darauf5~5 gegriindeten See also:Classification der Thiere, the first of the' See also:series of See also:works which placed him at the See also:head of the " natur-philosophic" or physio-philosophical school of See also:Germany. In it he extended to See also:physical See also:science the philosophical principles which See also:Kant had applied to See also:mental and moral science. Oken had, however, in this application been preceded by J. G. See also:Fichte, who, acknowledging that the materials for a universal science had been discovered by Kant, declared that nothing more was needed than a systematic co-ordination of these materials; and this task Fichte undertook in his famous See also:Doctrine of Science (Wissenschaftslehre), the aim of which was to construct a priori all knowledge. In this See also:attempt, however, Fichte did little more than indicate the path; it was reserved for F. W. J. von See also:Schelling fairly to enter upon it, and for Oken, following him, to explore its mazes yet further, and to produce a systematic See also:plan of the See also:country so surveyed. In the Grundriss der Naturphilosophie of 2802 Oken sketched the outlines of the See also:scheme he afterwards devoted himself to perfect. The position which he advanced in that remarkable work, and to which he ever after professed adherence, is that " the See also:animal classes are virtually nothing else than a See also:representation of the sense-See also:organs, and that they must be arranged in accordance with them. Agreeably with this See also:idea, Oken See also:con-tended that there are only five animal classes: (r) the Dermatozoa, or invertebrates; (2) the Glossozoa, or Fishes, as being those animals in which a true See also:tongue makes, for the first See also:time, its See also:appearance; (3) the Rhinozoa, or See also:Reptiles, wherein the See also:nose opens for the first time into the mouth and inhales See also:air; (4)' the Otozoa, or Birds, in which the See also:ear for the first time opens extern-ally; and (5) Ophthalmozoa, or Mammals, in which all the organs of sense are See also:present and See also:complete, the eyes being movable and covered with two lids. In 2805 Oken made another characteristic advance in the application of the a priori principle, by a See also:book on See also:generation (See also:Die Zeugung), wherein he maintained the proposition that " all organic beings originate from and consist of vesicles or cells. These vesicles, when singly detached and regarded in their See also:original See also:process of See also:production, are the infusorial See also:mass or protoplasma (urschleim) whence all larger organisms See also:fashion themselves or are evolved. Their production is therefore nothing else than a See also:regular agglomeration of See also:Infusoria—not, of course, of See also:species already elaborated or perfect, but of mucous vesicles or points in See also:general, which first See also:form themselves by their See also:union or See also:combination into particular species." One See also:year after the production of this remarkable See also:treatise, Oken advanced another step in the development of his See also:system, and in a See also:volume published in ,8o6, in which D. G. Kieser (t779-1862) assisted him, entitled Beitrdge zur vergleichenden Zoologie, Anatomic, and Physiologie, he demonstrated that the intestines originate from the umbilical vesicle, and that this corresponds to the vitellus or yolk-bag. Caspar See also:Friedrich See also:Wolff had previously proved this fact in the chick (Theoria Generationis, 1774), but he did not see its application as See also:evidence of a general See also:law. Oken showed the importance of the See also:discovery as an See also:illustration of his system. In the same work Oken described and recalled See also:attention to the corpora Wolffiana, or " primordial kidneys. The reputation of the See also:young privat-docent of Gottingen had meanwhile reached the ear of See also:Goethe, and in 1807 Oken was invited to fill the See also:office of See also:professor extraordinarius of the medical sciences in the university of See also:Jena. He accepted the See also:call, and selected for the subject of his inaugural discourse his ideas on the " Signification of the Bones of the See also:Skull," based upon a discovery he had made in the previous year. This famous lecture was delivered in the presence of Goethe, as privy-councillor and See also:rector of the university, and was published in the same year, with the See also:title, Ueber die Bedeutung der Schddelknochen. With regard to the origin of the idea, Oken narrates in his See also:Isis that, walking one autumn See also:day in r8o6 in the Harz See also:forest, he stumbled' upon the blanched skull of a See also:deer, picked up the partially dislocated bones, and contemplated them for a while, when the truth flashed across his mind, and he exclaimed, "It is a vertebral See also:column!" At a See also:meeting of the German naturalists held at Jena some years afterwards Professor Kieser gave an See also:account of Oken's discovery in the presence of the See also:grand-See also:duke, which account is printed in the tageblatt, or " proceedings," of that meeting. The professor stated that Oken communicated to him his discovery when journeying in 18o6 to the See also:island of Wangeroog. On their return to Gottingen Oken explained his ideas by reference to the skull of a turtle in Kieser's collection, which he disarticulated for that purpose with his own hands. " It is with the greatest See also:pleasure," wrote Kieser, " that I am able to show here the same skull, after having it See also:thirty years in my collection. The single bones of the skull are marked by Oken's own See also:handwriting, which may be so easily known." The range of Oken's lectures at Jena was a wide one, and they were highly esteemed. They embraced the subjects of natural See also:philosophy, general natural history, See also:zoology, See also:comparative See also:anatomy, the See also:physiology of See also:man, of animals and of See also:plants. The spirit with which he grappled with the vast See also:scope of science is characteristically illustrated in his See also:essay Ueber das Universum als Fortsetzung See also:des Sinnensystems, 18o8. In this work he See also:lays it down that " organism is none other than a combination of all the universe's activities within a single individual See also:body." This doctrine led him to the conviction that " See also:world and organism are one in See also:kind, and do not stand merely in See also:harmony with each other." In the same year he published his Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, &c., in which he advanced the proposition that " See also:light could be nothing but a polar tension of the See also:ether, evoked by a central body in antagonism with the See also:planets, and See also:heat was none other than a See also:motion of this ether "—a sort of vague anticipation of the doctrine of the " correlation of physical forces." In 18o9 Oken extended his system to the See also:mineral world, arranging the ores, not according to the metals, but agreeably to their combinations with See also:oxygen, acids and See also:sulphur. In 1810 he summed up his views on organic and inorganic nature into one compendious system. In the first edition of the Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie, which appeared in that and the following years, he sought to bring his different doctrines into mutual connexion, and to " show that the mineral, See also:vegetable and animal kingdoms are not to be arranged arbitrarily in accordance with single and isolated characters, but to be based upon the See also: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 See also: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 Lehrbuch procured for Oken the title of Hofrath, or See also:court-councillor, and in 1812 he was appointed See also:ordinary professor of the natural sciences. In 1816 he commenced the publication of his well-known periodical, entitled Isis, eine encyclopadische Zeitschrift, vorziiglich See also:fur Naturgeschichte, vergleichendc Anatomie and Physiologie. In this See also:journal appeared essays and notices not only on the natural sciences but on other subjects of See also:interest; See also: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 See also:Weimar called upon Oken either to suppress the Isis or resign his professorship. He See also:chose the latter alternative. The publication of the Isis at Weimar was prohibited. Oken made arrangements for its issue at See also:Rudolstadt, and this continued uninterruptedly until the year 1848. In 1821 Oken promulgated in his Isis the first idea of the See also:annual general meetings of the German naturalists and medical practitioners, which happy idea was realized in the following year, when the first meeting was held at See also:Leipzig. The See also:British Association for the See also:Advancement of Science was at the outset avowedly organized after the German or Okenian See also:model. In 1828 Oken resumed his original humble duties as privatdocent in the newly-established university of See also:Munich, and soonafterwards he was appointed ordinary professor in the same university. In 1832, on the proposal by the Bavarian See also:government to See also:transfer him to a professorship in a provincial university of the See also:state, he resigned his appointments and See also:left the See also:kingdom. He was appointed in 1833 to the professorship of natural history in the then recently-established university of See also:Zurich. There he continued to reside, fulfilling his professional duties and promoting the progress of his favourite sciences, until his See also:death on the 11th of August 1851. All Oken's writings are eminently deductive illustrations of a foregone and 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 See also:trunk—a kind of second trunk, with its limbs and other appendages; this sum of his observations and comparisons —few of which he ever gave in detail—ought always to be See also:borne in mind in comparing the See also:share taken by Oken in homological anatomy with the progress made by other cultivators of that philosophical See also:branch of the science. The idea of the See also:analogy between the skull, or parts of the skull, and the vertebral column had been previously propounded and ventilated in their lectures by J. H. F. Autenreith and K. F. Kielmeyer, and in the writings ofJ. P. See also:Frank. By Oken it was applied chiefly in illustration of the mystical system of Schelling—the ` allin-all " and " all-in-every-See also: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 See also:brain is the See also:spinal See also:cord; the cranium is the vertebral column; the mouth is See also:intestine and See also:abdomen; the nose is the lungs and See also:thorax; the jaws are the limbs; and the See also:teeth the claws or nails." ). B. von Spix, in his See also:folio Cephalogenesis (1818), richly illustrated comparative craniology, but presented the facts under the same transcendental See also:guise; and See also:Cuvier ably availed himself of the extravagances of these disciples of Schelling to See also:cast ridicule on the whole inquiry into those higher relations of parts to the archetype which See also:Sir See also:Richard See also:Owen called `.` general homologies." The vertebral theory of the skull had practically disappeared from anatomical science when the labours of Cuvier See also:drew to their See also:close. In Owen's Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate See also:Skeleton 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 See also:equivalent of the trunk, but is only a portion, i.e. certain modified segments, of the whole body. The jaws are the haeinal See also:arches ' of the first two segments; they are not limbs of the head " (p. 176). Vaguely and strangely, however, as Oken had blended the idea with his a priori conception of the nature of the head, the See also:chance of appropriating it seems to have overcome the moral sense of Goethe—unless indeed the poet deceived himself. Comparative See also:osteology had See also:early attracted Goethe's attention. In 1786 he published at Jena his essay Ueber den Zwischenkieferknochen des Menschen and der Thieve, showing that the intermaxillary See also: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 182o, in his Morphologie, he first publicly stated that thirty years before the date of that publication he had discovered the See also: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 182o, narrates having become inspired with the original idea are suspiciously analogous to those described by Oken in 18o?, 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 See also:sheep picked up on the shores of the Lido, at See also:Venice. It may be assumed that Oken when a privat-docent at Gottingen in 18o6 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 See also:introductory discourse in which the young professor, invited by the poet to Jena, selected this 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 See also:homage to the originality and See also:genius of his See also:patron. The anatomist having lectured for an See also:hour plainly unconscious of any such anticipation, it seems hardly less incredible that the poet should not have mentioned to the young lecturer his previous conception of the vertebro-See also:cranial theory, and the singular coincidence of the accidental circumstance which he subsequently alleged to have produced that discovery. On the contrary, Goethe permits Oken to publish his famous lecture, with the same unconsciousness of any anticipation as when he delivered it; and Oken, in the same state of belief, transmits a copy to Goethe (Isis, No. 7) who thereupon honours the professor with See also:special marks of attention and an invitation to his See also:house. No hint of any claim of the See also:host is given to the See also:guest; no word of reclamation in any shape appears for some years. In Goethe's rages- and Jahres-Hefte, he refers to two See also:friends, Reimer and Voigt, as being cognizant in 1807 of his theory. Why did not one or other of these make known to Oken that he had been so anticipated? " I told my friends to keep quiet," writes Goethe in 1825! Spix, in the meanwhile, in 1815, contributes his share to the development of Oken's idea in his Cephalogenesis. See also:Ulrich follows in 1816 with his Schildkrotenschddel; next appears the contribution, in 1818, by L. H. Bojanus, to the vertebral theory of the skull, amplified in the See also:Paragon to that anatomist's admirable Anatome Testudinis Europaeae (1821). And now for the first time, in 1818, Bojanus, visiting some friends at Weimar, there hears the rumour that his friend Oken had been anticipated by the See also:great poet. He communicates it to Oken, who, like an honest man, at once published the statement made by Goethe's friends in the Isis of that year, offering no reflection on the poet, but restricting himself to a detailed and interesting account of the circumstances under which he himself had been led independently to make his discovery when wandering in 1806 through the Harz. It was enough for him thus to vindicate his own claims; he abstains from any comment reflecting on Goethe, and maintained the same blameless silence when Goethe ventured for the first time to claim for himself, in 1820, the merit of having entertained the same idea, or made the discovery, thirty years previously. The German naturalists held their annual meeting at Jena in 1836, and there Kieser publicly See also:bore testimony, from See also:personal knowledge, to the circumstances and See also:dates of Oken's discovery. However, in the edition of See also:Hegel's works by See also:Michelet (See also:Berlin, 1842), there appeared the following See also:paragraph: " The type-bone is the dorsal vertebra, provided inwards with a hole and outwards with processes, every bone being only a modification of it. This idea originated with Goethe, who worked it out in a treatise written in 1785, and published it in his Morphologie (182o), p. 162. Oken, to whom the treatise was communicated, has pretended that the idea was his own See also:property, and has reaped the See also:honour of it." This See also:accusation again called out Oken, who thoroughly refuted it in an able, circumstantial and temperate statement in part vii. of the Isis (1847). Goethe's osteological essay of 1785, the only one he printed in that See also:century, is on a different subject. In the Morphologie of 182o–1824 Goethe distinctly declares that he had never published his ideas on the vertebral theory of the skull. He could not, therefore, have sent any such essay to Oken before the year 1807. Oken, in reference to his previous endurance of Goethe's pretensions, states that, " being well aware that his See also:fellow-labourers in natural science thoroughly appreciated the true state of the See also:case, he confided in quiet silence in their See also:judgment. Mcckel, Spix, Ulrich, Bojanus, See also:Carus, Cuvier, See also:Geoffroy St Hilaire, Albers, See also:Straus-Durckheim, Owen, Kieser and Lichtenstein had recorded their judgment in his favour and against Goethe. But upon the appearance of the new See also:assault in Michelet's edition of Hegel he could no longer remain silent." Oken's bold See also:axiom that heat is but a mode of "motion of light, and the idea broached in his essay on generation (1805) that " all the parts of higher animals are made up of an aggregate of Infusoria or animated globular monads," are both of the same See also:order as his proposition of the head being a repetition of the trunk, with its vertebrae and limbs. Science would have profited no more from the one idea without the subsequent experimental discoveries of H. C. Oersted and M. See also:Faraday, or from the other without the microscopical observations of See also:Robert See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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