Alexei Alexeyevich Ukhtomsky (Russian: Алексей Алексеевич Ухтомский; 1875–1942) was a Russian and Soviet physiologist. His main contribution to science was the theory of dominant. Alexey Ukhtomsky was born 13 (25) June 1875 on the family estate of the princes Ukhtomsky (from ancient nobility, going back to the Rjurik period) in the hamlet of Vosloma, near Arefino in the Rybinsk district in the province of Yaroslavl. His parents were the retired officer Alexey Ukhtomskii (1842-1902 ), and his wife Antonina Fyodorovna, née Anfimova (1847 -1913). They had five sons, Alexey, who died in infancy, Vladimir, Nicholas, and the eldest son Alexander, who later became Archbishop Andrey ( 1872-1937), and two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. In June 1876 his father's sister Anna Nikolaevna Ukhtomskaya, who lived in the town of Rybinsk, had just buried her mother, for whom she had cared for many years, and being now alone was looking for something to do with her life. Since Antonina Fedorovna was very busy and had insufficient time for her family, on September 27, 1876 Alex was sent away to be raised by his aunt Anna, and in his own words, she was his "principal teacher and companion until her death in 1898." In 1888 Alexey, who had not finished grammar school, entered the Nizhny Novgorod Cadet Corps at the urging of his father and mother. There he started to show an interest in science. During this period, the future professor Ivan P. Dolbnya (1853-1912), a mathematics teacher who introduced his students to a wide range of subjects of natural science, had a significant influence on him. Later Ukhtomsky called him "someone who teaches you to think." In cadet school Ukhtomsky showed interest not only in the physical and mathematical disciplines, but also in philosophy, psychology, ethics and literature. By age 18, he became acquainted with the writings of Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Feuerbach, James, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant, and other scientists and philosophers. In 1894, under the influence of his brother Alexander, and on the advice of I.P. Dolbnya Ukhtomsky entered the philological department of the Moscow Theological Academy. He did not live in a dorm, but in an apartment, that was kept comfortable by Nadezhda Bobrovskaya, who lived with him as an assistant and housekeeper until May 1941. As a young student of the Theological Academy, Ukhtomsky spent a month and a half in the department for chronically ill of the Yaroslavl mental hospital. He considered the years spent in the academy as most happy and productive for his spiritual development. The subject of his thesis was "The cosmological proof of the existence of God". There he proposed the idea of the unlimited possibilities of the human mind, and the uniqueness of each individual. In his academy years Ukhtomsky conceived the idea to identify the natural foundations of human moral behavior, and to find the physiological mechanisms by which the human personality develops in its full diversity. Ukhtomsky became a doctoral candidate of theology. Later, in his autobiography Ukhtomsky wrote: "my Ph.D. thesis put closer study of the physiology of the brain, neural activity in general, as well as the physiology of behavior, firmly on the agenda." Upon graduating from the academy, he chose not to pursue an ecclesiastical career. He joined the Russian Orthodox sect of the Old Believers (more precisely the Old Ritualists) (his estate Vosloma had always been inhabited by Old Believers). He wan...