Baer's teleological discussions were, as stated, 

 directed against popular materialistic neglect of objectiv- 

 ity which existed expediently (adapt ivity) in the structure 

 and vital activity of organisms. These discussions were, 

 however, inconsequent and sometimes invested in idealistic 

 form because Baer, denying adaptive evolution in the animal 

 and plant world as the result of natural selection, by the. 

 same token passed over the real source of expediency in 

 living nature. 



Skepticism toward the idea of evolution, toward 

 Darwinism, led Baer, especially in the last years of his 

 life, to deviate from the materialistic opinions character- 

 istic of the period of scientific activity to which his 

 unfading embryological works are related. 



Nevertheless, in relation to Baer, we may cite the 

 man who may correctly be called the greatest thinker of 

 the Russian Academy of Science for a century before Baer — 

 Mikhail Vasilevich Lomonosov: "As to people serving the 

 Republic of Science, I shall not attack them for their ._ 

 errors, but I will try to put into action their good ideas." 



47. See "267 Remarks on Physics and Corpuscular Philosophy," 

 16th Remark, M. V. Lomonosov, SOBR. SOCH., Vol. I 

 (Izd. AN SSR, 1950) . 



511 



