Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/187

 in 1865 and some other amendments, Russian thought began to develop more rapidly and to disentangle itself from foreign leading-strings.

Thus the rise of Russian secular thought, produced by the causes which have been considered above, began to manifest itself as early as the 18th century; but it grew more conspicuous only when the combined action of these causes coincided with favourable circumstances and the reforms just mentioned, and this occurred only in the middle of the 19th century: since then Russian thought has developed more independently and continuously, and this can be confirmed in various departments of Russian science and learning.

The process of development manifested itself in different domains of knowledge in Russia during the 18th and 19th centuries.

It can be studied either from a quantitative and statistical or from a qualitative and genetic point of view.

General statistical accounts of the growth of science and learning and of the nationality of its chief representatives in Russia hardly exist. Some approximate data, however, concerning the Imperial Academy of Sciences, are in this respect particularly characteristic. During the 18th century the Academy had 107 actual members; only 34 of them, that is 31·98 %, or, if we exclude three members from the Baltic provinces and three members from Finland, only 26·17 %, were Russians; of the