Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

Neither Creation nor Evolution
from the earth and also from remnants of dead animals and plants. The occurrence of
different human races made it likely that Homo sapiens, like animal species, had originated
in different parts of the world. Ritgen cited many examples of organisms that, he believed,
today still originate without "procreating parents," e.g., various fungi, infusoria,
entozoa, mites, lice, molluscs, worms, insects, fish, various plants – lower and higher –
among the latter, given certains conditions, poplars (Ritgen 1832, 47). No new human
races were forming de novo anymore, however, because with humanity nature had reached
its highest form and ever since the arrival of humans the process of abiogenesis had been
retrogressive. 24
Ritgen's "Anthropogenie" was reminiscent of what Oken had written on the subject.
Because of his Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie (1809-1811; 2nd edn 1831) Oken has often
been counted among the early advocates of evolutionary transformism and was bracketed
by Bronn and Vogt with Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Yet in a paper on the
origin of the first humans, he rejected the notion of a gradual transformation of animals
into humans, denigrating it as "childish and without thought" ("kindisch und gedankenlos")
and pitiable (Oken 1819, 1122). The
first humans had originated in a uterus that
was the ocean, and at a time when the water
temperature had been as high as that of a
mother's womb. From the kind of slime from
which still today infusoria and jellyfish originated,
membrane-encapsulated embryos of
humans had formed that extracted nourishment
and oxygen from the water. Children
may be able to survive on their own, without
maternal support, from the age of two, when
they have grown teeth and are capable of eating
worms, shellfish, snails, or also fruit etc..
The floating embryos had therefore been
"ripe" when the enclosed child was like a two-
Figure 4. Spontaneously generated human
foetus, at the developmental stage of a twoyear
old child (Oken 1819, plate 13, fig. 5).
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005)
159
year-old, and Oken published a sketch of what
such an embryo might have looked like (Figure
4). These had originated by the thousands,
some thrown ashore prematurely and left to
die, others crushed against rocks, yet others
für weniger fremdartig halten und das Hervorwachsen des letztern wie der erstern aus der Erde nicht als
ganz ungereimt abweisen" (Ritgen 1832, 47).
24 "In Ansehung der Thiere zweifelt Niemand, daß verschiedene Welttheile häufig dieselbe Thierart unter
einiger vom Welttheil abhängiger Nüanzirung in ihrem Schooße unmittelbar haben entstehen lassen, wie z.
der Tapir, das Nashorn, der Bär, Tieger u.s.w. Nach dieser Analogie müßte daher der Neger in Afrika, die
Rothhaut in Amerika u.s.w. entstanden sein. Es läßt sich übrigens behaupten, mit der Erscheinung der Menschenform
sei das Höchste erreicht worden, was auf unserm Planeten zu erreichen war und daher seie von
da an ein Rückschreiten im ursprünglichen Schaffen erfolgt, weshalb wohl noch Thiere und Pflanzen, aber
keine Menschen mehr neu aufgetreten seien" (Ritgen 1832, 50).