in the womb they will be born. There will be further 

 creation of the above mentioned which is impossible 

 to understand. The basis of all that is animal needs, 

 comprehensive. wisdom, and art. However, if it is thus, 

 then: first, the basis of this animal has in its smallest 

 stage all internal and external parts; and, second, it 

 is necessary that each embryo has, in itself also, the 

 possibility to be propagated into infinite kinds. Is it 

 possible that the mind understands the complex prepara- 

 tion in one embryo of a number of creatures? (pp. 43 - 

 44) 



To this extract it must be added that Wolff's time in 

 Petersburg coincided with that of A. N. Radishchev, who returned 

 from abroad in 1771 and was arrested in 1790. Radishchev, due 

 to his unusual and wide scientific interests and enormous 

 erudition, was acquainted with Wolff's works and related to 

 him with sympathy. It is clear that, in a treatise "About man, 

 his death and immortality," Radishchev definitively stated his 

 epigenetic view (as discussed later) . 



From the foregoing, the conclusion can be reached that 

 in Germany Wolff was not evaluated as a first class investigator 

 and advanced thinker. This forced him to move to Russia, and 

 therefore Germany does not have the right to claim Wolff's 

 glory. In fairness he must be considered a Russian scientist. 

 He must not be compared in any case with those foreign 

 academicians of Petersburg, who moved to Russia for a short 

 time for material considerations and did not firmly involve 

 themselves with Russian science. Unjustly, Kirchhoff wrote 

 about Wolff's decision to move to Russia that: "Of course, 

 this was a decision connected with renunciation; he must then 

 live far from his native country, in a cold northern country, 

 without constant renewal from enthusiastic students and 

 intimate contact with European science." 



It is well known that the representatives of European 

 science, in the persons of Bonnet, Haller, Meckel Sr. and 

 others, did not wish to admit Wolff into their midst; about 

 these opinions Meckel Jr. and Kirchhoff passed over in silence. 

 Also, B. E. Raikov's' statement that in Russia Wolff had no 



7. Raikov, ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS 

 IN RUSSIA, p. 70. 



47 



