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....

Physio-philosophy is, therefore, _the generative history of the world_; or, in general terms, the history of Creation, a name under which it was taught by the most ancient philosophers, namely, as Cosmogony.

From its embracing the Universe, it is plainly the Genesis of Moses!"[37] It will be observed that this strange speculation goes far beyond the comparatively modest conjecture of La Place.

It postulates _nothing_, and undertakes to account for _everything_.

In flagrant opposition to the old atheistic maxim, "Ex nihilo, nihil," it boldly affirms, "Ex nihilo, omnia." It speaks, indeed, of "laws in accordance with which the world took its origin;" but these laws must be as abstract as those of Mathematics, since they existed before matter itself; nay, more abstract, or, rather, more inconceivable still, since they existed, it would seem, even before Mind! Dr.Oken attempts to explain the production of the world from nothing by comparing it to the evolution of Arithmetical and Mathematical Science, out of the fundamental conception of _zero_! But, waiving this, we shall direct our attention to the only points in this theory which, in the existing state of speculative thought, can be held to have any practical interest in connection with our great theme.
That theory attempts to account for the production both of the FLORA and the FAUNA of the natural world by _the process of Development_ rather than by _the miracle of Creation_.