Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/234

 brilliant generalization. Thus the "periodic law" of the elements established systematic order in our conceptions of them.

Similar attempts were made in other domains of natural science. In mineralogy, for instance, Gadolin tried to deduce all the crystallographic systems and their subdivisions from one general principle, and Fedorov constructed a vast scheme of all the parallelohedrons, which were theoretically possible, and undertook the task of decomposing them into "stereohedrons." In biology, this principle of unity was conceived in different ways. The doctrine of a kind of "consensus" existing between the phenomena of organic life preceded the theory of evolution: Baer had been desirous to establish a connection between all natural objects, and supposed that "mutual relations of organized bodies" can be elucidated by the ontogenesis or the development of the individual; and more recently Pavlov formulated the leading idea of his physiological investigations, when he said that only by considering the organic body as a whole in its "living course" and as a correlation of its parts, can we study with some success the total importance of the functions of each one of them for this whole. The doctrine of evolution performed a similar rôle in respect to our conception of organic processes. Darwinism found many able adherents in Russia. Darwin himself had a very high