studied, and Professor of Zoology K. F. Rule, a leading 

 naturalist and one of Darwin's Russian predecessors. 



Rule frequently*^ opposed Schelling's Naturphilosophie, 

 and never returned to the question of the correlation between 

 experiment and theory in the study of nature; he decisively 

 rejected empiricism as well as idealistic rationalism. 

 "Natural history," wrote Rule, 90 



is the clean experimental science in which everything 

 begins and ends with the experiment .... Observa- 

 tions and experiments are mute? they must be explained 

 ... if not, they will stay without use in science. 

 In its turn each speculation should be checked and 

 reflected by some fact .... What will result from 

 such clean experimentation and clean speculation? — 

 a clean paradox." Cpp. 28 - 29) 



The struggle between empirical (materialistic) ideology, 

 whose supporters included Diadkovskii and his successors, and 

 the speculative (idealistic) ideology of Naturphilosophie 

 caused V. G. Belinskii and, almost simultaneously, Hertzen 

 to resolve the issue of the significance of the true relation- 

 ship of experiment and speculation in science. In 1844, 

 Belinskii wrote the following: 



All that he (Faust in the Epilogue of "Russian Nights") 

 says about the predominance of experimental observations 

 and analysis in the natural sciences is partly true. 

 Nevertheless, it is impossible to agree that this 

 could originate from moral corruption, from the fading 

 life. It is possible instead to think that the general 

 philosophical bases of natural science had not yet 



89. For example, in the course GENERAL ZOOLOGY (lithographed 

 edition, 1850; reissued in the book, K. F. RULE: 

 SELECTED BIOLOGICAL WORKS, ed. with commentary by 



L. Sh. Dovitashoili and S. R. Mikulinskii . Published by 

 the Academy of Science USSR, 1954) . 



90. K. F. Rule, "Doubts in Zoology as Science," "Native Notes, "„ 

 Vol. XIX, Part II, pp. 1 - 13 (1841) (cited in K. F. RULE: 

 SELECTED BIOLOGICAL WORKS, 1954). 



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