From the second half of the past century the use of 

 the systematic method of investigation was begun on 

 an organism in successive stages of its embryonic 

 existence; this was later directly called the history 

 of development or embryology. This new science . . . 

 had a special meaning to Russia. Its simultaneous 

 achievements obviously characterize three stages in 

 the fate of Russian science in general. In Petersburg, 

 the brilliant Kaspar Friedrich Wolff, whose courageous 

 and innovative ideas did not find a response among his 

 compatriots, mapped with his brilliant embryological 

 work the route for a new science. Another Russian 

 academician, a student of the famous Dorpat University 

 which was performing such great services to Russian 

 science, Karl Ernst von Baer, was considered the 

 founder of modern embryology. The classical inves- 

 tigations of Baer and his fellow countryman Pander 

 established, with many others, the high standard of 

 science on the Baltic coast. Finally, the names 

 A. Kowalevsky and Mechnikov remain connected with the 

 era of development of that new science A 



A well-known role in the preparation of the new period in 

 the history of biology, the period of removing the fantasy of 

 the nature-philosophers, was played by a professor of Wurzburg 

 University, I. Dollinger, who taught Pander and Baer. Both 

 spoke warmly of Dol linger 's influence on their scientific 

 endeavors and of his kind relations with them when they started 

 their work in his laboratory. In his youth Dollinger had been 

 fond of the ideas of Kant and Schelling. Later he sceptically 

 stuck to a priori structures and gave great consideration of 

 the direct empirical study of nature. Pander's and Baer's 

 presence in his laboratory was important, though Dollinger 

 did not himself have a significant effect in science. Baer 

 wrote that the school of Dollinger had done much for the 

 understanding of nature through the investigations of Pander. 

 Baer humbly underestimated himself. 



In his autobiography, published on the occasion of the 

 fiftieth anniversary of obtaining his doctoral degree, 3 



2. K. A. Timiryazev, "THE HISTORICAL METHOD OF BIOLOGY," 

 INVESTIGATION, vol. 6 (1939), p. 32. 



3. Baer, NACHRICHTEN UBER LEBEN UND SCHRIFTEN DES HERRN 

 GEHEIMSRATHS DR. KARL ERNST VON BAER, 1864. 



St. Petersburg, 1865. 674 pp. 



238 



