OKEN, LORENZ (1779-1851), German naturalist, whose real name was Ockenfuss, was born at Bohlsbach, Baden, on Aug. I, 1779. He studied at Wiirzburg and Gottingen, where he became Privatdozent. In 1807 he was appointed professor ex traordinarius of medical sciences at Jena. His inaugural discourse on the signification of the bones of the skull, based upon a dis covery he had made in the previous year, was delivered in the presence of Goethe, as privy-councillor and rector of the uni versity, and was published in the same year, with the title, I I eber die Bedeatung der Schadelkrochen. In 1816 he began to publish at Weimar the periodical Isis, eine encyclopadische Zeitschrift, vorziiglich fur Naturgeschichte, vergleicliende Anatomie and Physiologie. Comments on the politics of other German States led to a remonstrance from the court of Weimar, which demanded either the suppression of the Isis or resignation. Oken resigned, and continued to publish the Isis at Rudolstadt until 1848.
In 1821 Oken promulgated the idea of annual general meetings of German naturalists and medical practitioners, the first meeting being held in Leipzig in 1822. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was first organized after the Okenian model.
In 1828 Oken resumed his duties as privat-docent in the newly established University of Munich, and soon afterwards was ap pointed professor in the same university. In 1832, on the pro posal by the Bavarian Government to transfer him to a professor ship 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 University of Zurich, where he resided until his death, on Aug. II, 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 trunk—a kind of second trunk, with its limbs and other appendages; this sum of his observations and compari sons—few of which he ever gave in detail—ought always to be borne in mind in comparing the share taken by Oken in homo logical anatomy with the progress made by other cultivators of that philosophical branch of the science. Oken's axiom that "all the parts of higher animals are made up of an aggregate of in fusoria or animated globular nomads" is of the same order as his proposition that the head is a repetition of the trunk. This latter proposition was claimed to have been discovered by Goethe. He stated this in his Morphologie in 182o. A controversy followed ; Oken replied with an able statement in Isis (Part 7, 1847).
The following is a list of Oken's principal works : Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der Sinne; und der darauf gegriin deten Classification der Thiere (1802) ; Die Zeugung (1805); Abriss der Biologie (18o5); Beitriige zur vergleichenden-Zoologie, Anatomie und Physiologie (along with Kieser, 18o6—o7) ; Ueber die Bedeutung der Schiidelknochen (1807) ; Ueber das Universuni als Fortsetzung des Sinnensystems (18o8) ; Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniss, der Farben und der Warme (18o8); Grundzeichnung des natiirlichen Systems der Erze (1809) ; Ueber den Werth der Naturgeschichte (1809) Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie (18o9-11; 2nd ed., 1831; 3rd ed., 1843; Eng. trans., Elements of Physiophilosophy, ; Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte (1813, 1815, 1825) ; Handbuch der Naturge schichte zunt Gebrauch bei Vorlesungen (1816-2o) ; Naturge schichte fur Schzden (1821); Esquisse d'un Systeme d'Anatomie, de Physiologie, et d'Histoire Naturelle ( 8 2) ; Allgemeine Natur geschichte (1833-42, 14 vols.).
See also A. Ecker, L. Oken (188o) ; C. Giittler, L. Oken und sein Verhalbais zur Modernen Entwicklungslehre (1884).