ALEXANDER GRIGORIEVICH STOLETOV—FOUNDER OF RUSSIAN PHYSICS¹

A. K. Timiryazev, Moscow

The oldest university of the Soviet Union today remembers Alexander Grigorievich Stoletov, its glory and pride. We, the workers of the university, are proud that this remarkable Russian scientist spent his student years within the walls of Moscow University. We are proud that all his thirty-year, glorious scientific activity took place in our university. For thirty years, without interruption, he was among the professors of our university.

But we must give ourselves an account of the fact that the great work of Alexander Grigorievich’s life cannot be measured by the measure of one university alone, even one such as Moscow University. Alexander Grigorievich is undoubtedly one of the great founders of physics in our great country.

If Lomonosov, at the dawn of the development of natural science in Russia, by his great works, which were ahead of his age, and by his whole example, showed vividly:

“That the Russian land can give birth
To Platos of its own
And to quick-witted Newtons,”—

nevertheless he remained alone; after him there remained no particularly outstanding pupils, no particularly outstanding followers.

But one thing may be said: from the time of Lomonosov, physics, to use modern language, firmly entered the curriculum of the universities of that time. However, during the century-long period separating Lomonosov’s death in 1765 from the appearance of Alexander Grigorievich at the Department of Moscow University in 1866, the teaching of physics, and to an even greater degree—

¹ Stenographic record of a report delivered at the solemn joint session of the Academic Council of the Faculty of Physics and the general colloquium of the Institute of Physics of Moscow State University on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Prof. Alexander Grigorievich Stoletov, September 15, 1939.

neither scientific-research work stood, in general, at a very low level. By this I by no means wish to say that during this period we did not have outstanding scholars, outstanding physicists. During this period we had V. V. Petrov, who in 1803 published a description of his remarkable experiments with the voltaic arc (this was 18 years before the officially recognized date of the discovery of the voltaic arc in England by Sir Humphry Davy). At that time we had, at Moscow University, P. I. Strakhov; unfortunately, his experimental works, preserved in manuscript, burned during the fire of 1812, but he left behind a textbook very good for its time, and we know that, especially in the last years of his life, he was occupied with the question of the evaporation of mercury at room temperature, i.e. he was occupied with a question which interests our institute even now, perhaps more than its administration, in view of the frequent poisonings of our staff by mercury vapors.

During this period we had M. S. Jacobi, the inventor of electroplating and of the first electric motor. We had the famous E. Kh. Lenz, whose name is well known to every schoolchild; his pupil Savelyev at Kazan University, whose works were highly valued by foreign scholars. But all these outstanding people, and very many others whom I have not mentioned, despite all their merits and virtues, could not exert upon the development of physics in our country such an influence as Alexander Grigorievich exerted during the 30 years of his glorious activity at Moscow University.

Therefore, in my survey of the life and works of Alexander Grigorievich, I shall try to direct your attention chiefly to those characteristic features of his talent which placed him precisely at the center of the physicists of his epoch; and that he stood at the center is best shown by a short list of the members of the circle organized by Stoletov. The scholars who belonged to this circle later became outstanding, and some outright famous, in our country. It is enough to point out that in that small circle, which gathered at Stoletov’s apartment after his return from abroad, there took part such people as N. E. Zhukovsky—the founder of our aviation; Professor of Mechanics F. A. Sludsky; the famous astronomer F. A. Bredikhin; and, among physicists, V. A. Mikhelson, from whose book the modern Soviet student body studies; D. A. Goldhammer; N. A. Umov, who for many years held the chair at Moscow University; N. N. Shiller—a prominent theorist who, unfortunately, later acquired the very sad reputation of a reactionary, and in philosophy an idealist; R. A. Kolli; A. P. Sokolov; P. A. Zilov. And if to this we add that Stoletov was on friendly terms with, and scientifically influenced, the Kiev professor

M. P. Avenarius, who created around himself an outstanding school of physicists (Nadezhdin, Zaionchevsky, Strauss), and if you recall that P. N. Lebedev, who completed Stoletov’s great work by founding the first major scientific school at Moscow University, was invited to Moscow University thanks to the insistence of Stoletov, who had to wage a very great struggle in the process—then you will see that Stoletov is undoubtedly the founder of physics in our country. For all these people of whom I have just spoken proudly considered themselves Stoletov’s pupils, and as scholars they were educated under his direct influence.

Alexander Grigorievich Stoletov

You see, therefore, that Stoletov entered the arena of the history of physics in our country no longer as an isolated figure, but surrounded by a powerful group of followers.

Allow me, however, before moving on to this main part of my essay, to remind you briefly of the principal milestones of his life.

Alexander Grigorievich was born on July 29 according to the old style (August 10, 1839, according to the new) into a merchant family in Vladimir. His ancestors, Novgorod merchants, had been resettled from Novgorod to Vladimir for sedition by Tsar Ivan IV. They were distinguished, among other things, according to tradition, by the fact that most of them reached a very advanced age, for which they received the nickname “the Centenarians.” Unfortunately, Alexander Grigorievich did not live up to this nickname of his forefathers, and owing to the exceptionally difficult conditions in which Russian scholars lived—especially those of progressive cast of mind (and Alexander Grigorievich was in their foremost ranks)—he died at the age of 57, thus sharing the fate of other great physicists of our country: Lomonosov, who died at 54, and Lebedev, who died at 46.

Stoletov’s early upbringing was directed by his mother, who succeeded in instilling in her son a great love for our literature. He knew our writers almost by heart. This was reflected in the fact that all his works, as well as his lectures, were models of pure, fine Russian language. In addition, under his mother’s influence, he took up the study of foreign languages. He had a perfect command of English, French, and German.1

He graduated from the Vladimir gymnasium in 1856, and in the same year entered Moscow University, completing its course in 1860, as we would now say, as an “excellent student,” and was retained at the university to prepare for the professorial rank. In 1862 he went abroad, and great good fortune fell to his lot (he managed to spend 3½ years abroad): he studied with Magnus in Berlin, where he became closely acquainted with Avenarius. Together with him he moved to Kirchhoff in Heidelberg, where he spent the greater part of his foreign assignment. Kirchhoff later spoke of Stoletov as his best pupil; a rather lively correspondence took place between them, and in the last years of his life Kirchhoff sent Stoletov all his still unpublished works before sending them to press: in their letters they exchanged their views on the occasion—

ALEXANDER GRIGORYEVICH STOLETOV

these works. During these years Alexander Grigoryevich also visited Göttingen, Weber, and Paris.

In 1866 he began teaching theoretical physics, or mathematical physics, as it was then called, and only in 1882 did he move to the chair of experimental physics, although even earlier, from 1872, he had begun organizing the physical practicum—the very same practicum that is now within these walls. Many of the tasks of this physical practicum were prepared and set up personally by Alexander Grigoryevich and his few assistants.

At Moscow University he continued his work until his unexpected death—May 14, 1896.

Such, in brief outline, are the principal milestones of this remarkable life.

Alexander Grigoryevich emerged as a professor and scholar in the second half of the 1860s, when Russia had already fully entered the path of capitalist development and had followed in the footsteps of the other capitalist countries of Europe. At that time industry began to develop, and this new industry, which had arisen on our soil, was equipped, by the standards of that time, with very modern technology. It goes without saying that this could not fail to influence the way such sciences as physics were taught in our country. Undoubtedly, the level of teaching in those years rose considerably. But people such as Alexander Grigoryevich, who were ahead of everyone else, could not be satisfied with this; it was not enough for them that the sciences should be taught better in our country—they wanted not only that the sciences be taught, but, to use the words of Peter I, that “they be produced” within the walls of higher educational institutions. And this was precisely not part of the plans of the then leaders of tsarist Russia: they all reckoned that one could always turn abroad for scientific and technical assistance. And so, I think, it is in this contradiction that the cause lies of the tragedy experienced by all the people of Stoletov’s generation: they were not valued only in their homeland. For you know that D. I. Mendeleev, A. G. Stoletov, I. M. Sechenov, K. A. Timiryazev, and P. N. Lebedev all remained outside the Academy of Sciences; likewise, such outstanding engineers as Lodygin, Yablochkov, and Dolivo-Dobrovolsky were forced to seek refuge in distant foreign lands. Meanwhile, as soon as Stoletov appeared at the first congress of electricians in Paris in 1881, the assembled physicists from all corners of the globe immediately took notice of him. All the outstanding representatives of our science were present at this congress. At the very first session, when the question of establishing a unit of resistance was raised, great disputes immediately arose. From the theoretical standpoint it was correctly proposed to

...the commission of the British Association, which had established a unit—that unit which we still call the ohm; but the physicists who worked on this prepared standards which, after only a few years, had changed, and therefore great difficulties arose. On the other hand, the Germans proposed as a unit the “Siemens,” i.e. the resistance of a column of mercury with a cross-section of \(1\ \mathrm{mm}^2\) and a height of \(1\ \mathrm{m}\). At the very first session of the congress a heated dispute arose, and this dispute was resolved by Stoletov, who put forward a project based on the principles proposed by English scientists, while pointing out the necessity of continuing and refining their work; as a standard, he proposed using the German project, but taking for the length of the column not \(100\ \mathrm{cm}\), but the length that corresponded to the theoretical value of the ohm. This plan, proposed by Stoletov, was unanimously adopted at the next session of the congress. Also deserving attention is Stoletov’s proposal on the necessity of preserving both systems of units—the electrostatic and the electromagnetic.

The motivation that was given by Aleksandr Grigor’evich in favor of this proposal is interesting. He pointed to the necessity of preserving both systems of units in order constantly to recall that connection which apparently exists between light and electricity. This was in 1881, when Maxwell’s theory was almost completely unknown, i.e. when it, in Boltzmann’s apt expression, was “a book under seven seals.” Already in this example it is evident that Aleksandr Grigor’evich was ahead of his contemporaries, ahead of his age.

When, 8 years later, at the Second Congress of Electricians, Aleksandr Grigor’evich again appeared and delivered a brilliant report on his classic actino-electric investigations, he was immediately elected first vice-president of the congress. The celebrated physicist William Thomson was then elected president.

In our own Russia, however, only 4 years after the congress of electricians had brought him into the front ranks, in 1893 the question was raised of his election to the national, Russian Academy of Sciences. And the result was the following. The president of the academy, a grand duke of the House of Romanov, by his own authority removed this candidacy and instead nominated Prince Golitsyn, whose master’s dissertation Stoletov had returned to the author for correction, in view of the fact that it contained serious errors.

Since all sorts of misinterpretations still exist around this affair even in our own day, I shall allow myself to make public one document concerning this question. This document is a letter from Aleksandr Grigor’evich to my late father, K. A. Timiryazev, with whom Aleksandr Grigor’evich was on friendly terms. In this letter, in essence, an extract is given from...

another letter, from the letter of Academician N. N. Beketov, the only academician who spoke out in defense of Stoletov.

After this introduction I think that the content of the letter will be perfectly clear to you. The letter is dated October 15, 1893. Stoletov wrote in such agitation that the letter was without a salutation.

“The letter from N. N. Beketov says:

“The matter of electing you to membership in the Academy was not allowed, by the president’s will, to come to completion, and a new commission was appointed—that is, in fact, the former one, with the exception of me, since I refused to participate in it. This new commission has already proposed a candidate for adjunct—Prince Golitsyn... I, of course, had several explanations with the president himself and, finally, made statements openly at a meeting of our department, but there was no support. Apparently, agitation against you was coming from Moscow. The president himself, who decided it by his own authority, has assumed all responsibility for the course of this matter.”1

Is this happening in a dream or in waking life?

Your Stoletov.”

Golitsyn subsequently carried out important research in the field of seismology; he improved the seismograph, but, of course, to compare Golitsyn and Stoletov or, still more, to prefer Golitsyn to Stoletov—this was an insolent challenge to all Russian science of that time.

How did the best part of the scholars of that time answer this challenge? It was not possible to protest openly at that time. I shall permit myself to cite a small excerpt. What I have just told you about took place in October 1893, and in January 1894 there was a congress of naturalists and physicians. At this congress the chairman was my late father, K. A. Timiryazev. I shall quote an excerpt from his concluding presidential address, concerning Aleksandr Grigoryevich:

“In the activity of the sections one feature came to the fore, met with general sympathy: this was a series of brilliant demonstrative communications and scientific exhibitions. The palm of primacy in this respect, by universal recognition, should be awarded to the section of physics.

Thanks to the indefatigable energy and talent of Professor Sto—

members not only of the physics section, but also of the other sections, could acquaint themselves with a number of brilliant recent experiments, such as can perhaps be seen in such a form only in two or three scientific centers of Europe.”

And so, according to eyewitnesses, when these words had been spoken, all the members of the congress, filling the Hall of Columns known to Muscovites, about 2,000 in number, rose as one man and gave Stoletov a stormy ovation: for several minutes the walls literally shook with applause. In this way the best that there was in the scholarly world of old Russia responded to the brazen challenge of the tsarist government and its accomplices. But the persecution that had arisen in connection with the refusal to accept Golitsyn’s dissertation spread more and more widely. I shall recount from memory my late father’s story about a completely wild scene that took place in the professors’ room (this room formerly was located on the lower floor of the building where the communist lecture hall now is, on the left side). One of the most right-wing, reactionary-minded professors, the jurist Graf Komarovsky, was in this room telling of his conversation with the minister: “Well, now, gentlemen, you may be at ease: there will be no more student disturbances. The minister has stated decisively that at the first student affair this young fellow (at this he nodded his head in Stoletov’s direction) will be thrown out of the university...” Alexander Grigorievich had to live through quite a few such scenes. I think the meaning of Stoletov’s words, which those close to him heard from him a few days before his death, will now be clear to you:

“I have had unpleasantnesses, and apparently my strength was no longer what it had been...”

Such was the fate of this remarkable scientist in tsarist Russia.

Now let us pose the main question: what features of Alexander Grigorievich’s talent placed him at the center of the physicists of his epoch? Let us begin, first of all, with his scientific works. I shall not here recount the content of these works—this will be done by my comrades who will speak after me—but I would like to give their general characterization.

First of all, the topics that Stoletov chose were always new; they were even so new that not all the physicists around him, both ours and foreign, understood the meaning and significance of these works. In his works he undoubtedly went ahead of his age. I can illustrate this with a number of examples. I have already said that Stoletov was, perhaps, one of the first propagandists of Maxwell’s theory, and he devoted one of his early works to the precise measurement of the ratio of electromagnetic and electrostatic units. Although already among a number of authors and followers

was obtained a value close to the speed of light; however, he considered it necessary to substantiate this proposition of Maxwell’s theory still more firmly; he proposed the best method for determining this ratio. What the point was here was clear to him, but to everyone around him it seemed incomprehensible why he was spending so much time and effort on solving this problem.

Let us now take his “study of the function of magnetization of soft iron.” In this study there is established for the first time the fact, now well known, that the coefficient of susceptibility, or the function of magnetization, as Stoletov called it, at first increases as the magnetizing field is increased, reaches a maximum, and then decreases.

Stoletov showed that in the numerical material in the works of his predecessors everything was already ready for the discovery of this law, and nevertheless, before him no one had succeeded in discovering this regularity.

Further, in this remarkable study there were developed those methods of investigating the magnetic properties of iron and steel which are now used both in physics and in technology. Stoletov clearly realized what enormous practical significance his work had—this can be seen from the following concluding words of his doctoral dissertation.

“On the other hand, the study of the function of magnetization of iron may have practical importance in the construction and use both of electromagnetic motors and of those magneto-electric machines of a new kind, in which the temporary magnetization of iron plays the chief role... Knowledge of the properties of iron with respect to temporary magnetization is just as necessary here as acquaintance with the properties of steam is for the theory of steam engines. Only with such knowledge shall we obtain the possibility of discussing a priori the most advantageous construction of such an apparatus and of calculating in advance its useful effect.”

These words were fully justified: the calculation of the magnetic circuit is the basis for the calculation of motors and generators of electric current.

Finally, his famous actino-electric investigations pointed out new paths along which science proceeded. These works formed the basis of the modern doctrine of the photoelectric effect, with all its numerous practical applications, and of the large new branch of modern physics that has since developed, studying the discharge of electricity in gases.

In short, all his principal works were of such a kind that in them Stoletov was several heads ahead of the physicists around him. This is one side. And if we look at how these works were carried out, then only one thing can be said: if we examine these works now, at this very moment, then there is much that we can add to them; indeed, it cannot be otherwise.

It could not have been otherwise, for science moves forward; but nothing can be deleted from Stoletov’s works. In the field of his classical actino-electric investigations, the measurements themselves, which were carried out with equipment that, from the modern point of view, was still very imperfect, were nevertheless performed so carefully that even these numerical results differ little from the data obtained in subsequent works, carried out many years after the publication of Stoletov’s works and, moreover, with more advanced technique.

Next—the third feature, one that many contemporary scientists might envy—is his extraordinarily finely developed critical talent. All of Stoletov’s works are permeated with very subtle, at times very severe, but always just criticism. How often, in order to show that we are not lagging behind the times, do we transmit at once, without criticism, everything that appears in the latest issue of a journal. Stoletov never did this. Before appearing at lectures, he always carefully reflected on, and subjected to the strictest criticism, everything about which he reported in his lectures.

And, finally, the fourth aspect characteristic of Stoletov is his extraordinary versatility. If you take the topics of Aleksandr Grigor’evich’s works, you will see that they concern the most diverse branches of physics. And this was understandable: a man who in fact advanced physics in our country to a considerable degree had to inspire his pupils; and, of course, only he who was not himself a narrow specialist could inspire them. In our time, when physics in our country already stands firmly on its own feet, even a narrow specialist who has created, let us say, a school in that narrow specialty can do very much. But then, when there was almost nothing around, it was impossible to concentrate on some small field; at that time it was necessary to possess precisely that versatility which A. G. possessed. His lectures were therefore so attractive because, on every question about which he spoke in his course, one felt that behind these concise words there lay an enormous amount of preliminary work; that he had carefully thought through every question of the course, and that, perhaps, behind every word there lay long and persistent research.

We turn now to clarifying the philosophical views of Aleksandr Grigor’evich.

Anyone who becomes even briefly acquainted with his excellent popular lectures and speeches will at once see that he is dealing with a man who stood firmly on materialist positions. This materialism in A. G.’s works appears most clearly in his remarkable speeches against Mach and Ostwald. Do not forget that this was in 1894. Stoletov at once understood the reactionary significance of the philosophy of Mach and Ostwald and, as a physicist, came forward with his sharp criti-

ALEXANDER GRIGOR’EVICH STOLETOV

... By creating his new “science”—energetics—Ostwald mocked all preceding science as a science of “childhood.”

“And as an example of how we shall reason when we emerge from the ‘childhood state,’” Stoletov replies to him, “Ostwald suggests to us, for example, that energy has elasticity (!!) and is carried through absolute emptiness (!!)” (the exclamation marks and spacing belong to Stoletov.—A. T.).

“In this science,” Stoletov continues, “(it was called energetics, although the same name is also used with lesser pretensions) the basis is the concept of energy, torn away from the mechanical soil that gave rise to it, while its content consists of two principles, of which the first is the same principle of the conservation of energy, and the second has been copied from the second law of thermodynamics, but expressed in an elusively general and truly metaphysical form...”

“They try to apply these principles even outside the natural sciences (for example, in political economy!).”

“But in the field of the physical sciences this ‘purified’ energetics has so far discovered nothing that would not have been contained in ordinary theories... Such a tendency reminds us of the symbolism of the so-called decadents, which has appeared in the newest literature. The most profound minds of our time do not look at the matter in this way.”

These excerpts from the speech “Helmholtz and Contemporary Physics,” 1894, clearly show how close already at that time, i.e. in 1894, Stoletov came to the modern critique of physical idealism.

On the basis of some of Stoletov’s formulations one might perhaps include him among the adherents of mechanical materialism. That would be quite understandable: in that epoch mechanical materialism still prevailed. But such an attribution would be premature and incorrect precisely because Stoletov understood by mechanics something far deeper and more general than is usually meant by it.

I shall now cite a short excerpt (all from the same speech), from which what has just been said will be quite clear.

“Physics had long been dimly seeking,” says Stoletov, “the possibility, in a certain sense, of expanding the dynamical foundations... This evolution of physical mechanics is now taking on a more correct and conscious character. In Helmholtz’s later works the ether is considered as a substance without inertia, without mass in Newton’s sense. Hertz’s posthumous book—The Principles of Mechanics—is an attempt, successful or not, to adapt mechanics to these requirements. This evolution of mechanics is not its abolition. In doing so, we understand mechanics in the general sense of the word, as the physical doctrine of motion...”

If you think through what Stoletov is saying here, you will see how closely he approached the fundamental propositions of dialectical materialism.

For comparison let us cite a passage from Lenin’s book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism: “Such properties of matter as formerly seemed absolute, immutable, and primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass, etc.) are disappearing and are now revealed as relative, inherent only in certain states of matter.”

You see that in this field, too, Stoletov comes extraordinarily close to our time.

Further, if you read only superficially his sharp and witty attacks against Lyubimov’s history of physics, it may appear that Stoletov treated studies in the history of science, and in particular in the history of physics, with neglect. But if such doubts arise, the best thing is to take his remarkable speech, “An Outline of the Development of Our Knowledge of Gases.” This was a speech delivered at a ceremony of Moscow University in 1879. Look, if only at one passage, which I shall now read, and see how profoundly Aleksandr Grigorievich approaches the study of questions in the history of physics:

“Thus, let us cast a glance over the history of the physics of gases, from the most ancient thinkers, who regarded the firmament as a solid crystal, to Cailletet and Pictet, who were the first to obtain solid air; from Anaximenes, who proclaimed air the beginning of things, to Huggins, who proved the gaseous nature of the nebulae of the sky, those embryonic worlds in the ideas of Kant, Laplace, and Herschel.

“But our interests are concentrated chiefly on the most recent, ‘reborn’ physics. Here two epochs will hold our particular attention. They are separated by an interval of precisely a century. One (the epoch of Torricelli, Guericke, and Boyle) precedes Newton’s great book, in which it finds its completion; the other is expressed in the works of Lavoisier. The movement of the exact sciences, begun by the school of Galileo in Italy, is concentrated at first on English soil, later among the French. The epoch of Boyle and the epoch of Lavoisier correspond to the great social upheavals that developed in these two countries in the middle of the seventeenth and at the end of the eighteenth century. The seventeenth century elucidated, in its main outlines, the mechanics of gases; the eighteenth created gas chemistry. It was given to our century to penetrate more deeply into what may rightly be called the physics of gases, in the original sense of that word.”

You see that A. G. compares advances in the field of physics with events in social life. At that time, to mention that revolutions had brought about the flourishing of science was an act of great civic courage—at that time, especially in the law faculty, people shuddered at the word “revolution.” Thus A. G., even in questions connected—

...connected with the study of the history of science, approaches our contemporary views: he is a scholar of the new age.

I shall turn to his last lecture accessible to the general public: “Leonardo da Vinci as a Natural Scientist.” I advise those of you who have never read Stoletov to begin precisely with this lecture; it is written with exceptional brilliance both in literary respect and in content. In this lecture Stoletov draws a parallel between the activity of the artist and the activity of the scientist, and finds very much in common in both domains. Further, he compares Goethe with Leonardo da Vinci and gives preference to Leonardo da Vinci:

“I have already hinted that in the realm of scientific thought Vinci appears stronger, more many-sided, than the creator of Faust. Goethe everywhere remains an artist, a poet, a prophet; in this (but only in this) lies his strength even in the sphere of science. A brilliant intuition, an eagle’s gaze, surveying from above a complex group of phenomena and, in its seeming chaos, catching the features of lawfulness—such is his method. A gift, precious in the first stages of investigation, necessary for every major scientific worker. But this method alone does not exhaust scientific work. After the first grasp of the whole and the first vague divination of a new regularity there must follow scientific work proper, the work of logical analysis and of every kind of testing of the fleeting conjecture, the chief instruments of which are deliberate experiment and mathematical analysis. Only then is a full-blooded, truly scientific illumination of the subject obtained.

Goethe does not possess this second stage of scientific work; he is by nature alien to it and fears it, and rejects it on principle. The analysis of the whole, attention to details, recourse to artificial experiment, the attempt to bring a natural phenomenon under mathematical measure—all this seems to him a barren and harmful encroachment upon the wholeness and vitality of nature. ‘One phenomenon, one experiment proves nothing; it is a link in a great chain, having significance only in the general connection.’ ‘Physics must stand apart from mathematics.’ ‘Nature laughs at torture.’

“Leonardo da Vinci presents to us a brilliant example of the opposite—a scarcely unique example on such a scale. The first-rate artist gets along here with the investigator, who praises experience as the only basis of knowledge and recognizes mathematical analysis as a necessary touchstone of true investigation.

In his views and methods, Vinci is far more than Goethe a man of the new age, and this is all the more astonishing since he lived a whole century before Fr. Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes, two centuries before Newton.”

But Leonardo, while praising experience, was not a narrow empiricist. Stoletov quotes the following remarkable words of his:

“Those who attach themselves to practice without knowledge are like a navigator without rudder and compass: he never knows where he is going.” “Practice must always rest on good theory.” “Theory is the commander, practice the soldiers.”

In concluding this remarkable lecture, Stoletov utters truly astonishing words, to which I would like to draw your special attention:

“And yet, the fusion of scientific and artistic interests, even in that early and dark epoch, proved to be within the power of at least one exceptionally gifted man. Can it be that now, at the close of the nineteenth century, in an age of science and universal education, it must still be considered untimely and unattainable?”

Comrades! These words, beyond any doubt, will find their worthy response precisely now, in our time, in the Stalin epoch, in the epoch of the gradual transition from socialism to communism, when the boundaries between physical labor and mental labor are being erased. These words are much closer to our present epoch than to the time when Stoletov pronounced them.

Now the question arises: why, in this last lecture of his—one may say, in this “swan song”—was Stoletov so close to our time? I think the explanation lies in the following: the great scholar of the Renaissance was, apparently, very close to Stoletov; and, apparently, because Stoletov possessed many of the qualities that distinguished the great scholars of the Renaissance.

I know that this thought may seem paradoxical to many of you; but if you recall what those who had to blaze new trails, to found physics in our then backward country, had to endure; if you recall Stoletov and Lebedev, if you recall what incredible difficulties they had to overcome, how they had to display, in ways most unexpected for them, the most varied aspects of their talent, of their organizational abilities—then, I think, you will come to the conclusion that this parallel between Stoletov and Lebedev and the scholars of the Renaissance is not so very paradoxical.

Recall how Engels characterizes the Renaissance. Here is what he writes in the Dialectics of Nature:

“This was the greatest progressive revolution that mankind had so far experienced, an epoch which needed titans and which produced titans in power of thought, passion, and character, in many-sidedness and learning. The men who founded the modern rule of the bourgeoisie were anything but bourgeois-limited. On the contrary, they were more or less imbued with the adventurous character of their time. There was then scarcely any man of importance who had not made distant journeys, who did not speak …”

in four or five languages, shone in several fields of creative endeavor... Leonardo da Vinci was not only a great artist, but also a great mathematician, mechanic, and engineer, to whom the most diverse branches of physics owe important discoveries.”

If you recall what I have told you about Alexander Grigorievich, you will see that there is much in common here. Although Alexander Grigorievich did not work in sciences other than physics, within physics he astonished us by his extraordinary versatility. And he could not have been otherwise, because otherwise he would not have stood at the center of the physics of that epoch. Take even such a characteristic as knowledge of languages. True, A. G. did not speak five languages, but he spoke three languages perfectly, and this led to his feeling at home in Cambridge, in Paris, and in Berlin; and thanks to this he did much to help Russian physics firmly attain, on an international scale, the honorable position that it occupies even today.

If A. G. was not an artist in the sense in which Leonardo da Vinci was, then recall the passage I read, where A. G. says what qualities of the artist a scientist must possess. And it was precisely these qualities that A. G. possessed, precisely because all his scientific investigations were ahead of their time; and such a scientist, in the full sense of the word a leading scientist, must possess the gift of the artist—to grasp at once, from above, a complex group of phenomena.

A. G. said that Goethe was to a lesser degree a man of the new age than Leonardo da Vinci. I think that of A. G. too we may say: yes, he is a man of the new age. And therefore I think that I may conclude my sketch of the life and work of Alexander Grigorievich Stoletov with the words of Lomonosov¹, written 186 years ago, on the very day of the tragic death of Professor Richmann, killed by lightning—words which, it seems to me, also express our attitude toward Alexander Grigorievich:

“His memory will never fall silent.”

¹ “Meanwhile Mr. Richmann died a glorious death, fulfilling the duty of his profession. His memory will never fall silent...” (M. V. Lomonosov, from a letter to I. I. Shuvalov, July 26, 1753).

1. According to N. P. Gubsky (a nephew of A. G. Stoletov), A. G.’s brother Nikolai Grigoryevich, a general known for his courageous defense of the Shipka positions in 1877, at the end of 1893 personally asked the president of the Academy why, in fact, A. G.’s candidacy for the Academy had been withdrawn, to which he received an irritated and sharp reply: “Your brother is of a quarrelsome character.” These data were communicated to me by N. P. Gubsky after the reading of the present report. ↩↩