CHAPTER 10 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBRYOLOGY 



IN THE EPOCH OF THE STRUGGLE OF RUSSIAN 



EMPIRICAL SCIENCE AGAINST NATURPHILOSOPHIE 



The beginning of the nineteenth century in Russian and 

 world embryology was characterized by the activities of 

 H. C. Pander and especially the brilliant activities of 

 K. M. Baer, both of whom afterwards were members of the 

 Petersburg Academy of Science. After K. F. Wolff's work 

 and general conclusions became available and understandable 

 to contemporaries, but prior to Pander and Baer, it is 

 impossible to name any other embryologist who was comparable 

 in accuracy, breadth and depth of investigation. 



Pander's and Baer's works will be reviewed in the 

 following chapters with the necessary detail. The present 

 chapter will be devoted to the characteristics of the ideas 

 of Naturphilosophie which were generated in Germany and which 

 for thirty years made their effect (mainly negative) on 

 Russian biological science, including embryology. These ideas, 

 which attracted some investigators, were abstracted on the 

 way so that they sometimes developed unusual constructions . 

 From the beginning they were rejected by representatives of 

 the progressive materialistic trend in Russian science, which 

 was supported by the brilliant achievements of natural science, 

 including the activities of the Petersburg Academy of Science. 



The excitement over Naturphilosophie was, to a certain 

 extent, a sign of the times. The epoch of the eighteenth- 

 century French Enlightenment and the liberation of the French 

 Revolution were replaced by years of political and ideological 

 reaction, expressed particularly by the German idealistic 

 philosophical systems. Among them is Schelling's system. 



141 



