Lorenz Oken quotes:

Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness.

During its development the animal passes through all stages of the animal kingdom. The foetus is a representation of all animal classes in time.

Man is the summit, the crown of nature's development, and must comprehend everything that has preceded him, even as the fruit includes within itself all the earlier developed parts of the plant. In a word, Man must represent the whole world in miniature.

The cells are thus the stomachs of which the plant has millions like mouths.

The whole of a human being is merely a vertebra.

The eye takes a person into the world. The ear brings the world into a human being.