Part 7

Though the realisation of such a glorious Institute would not be effected through one life or one fortune, he wanted to accomplish something--something, so far as it lay in his power. So he proceeded to build and equip an Institute--the "Bose Institute"--at a cost of about 5 lakhs, the entire savings of his lifetime. While it was being constructed Their Excellencies the Viceroy and the Governor of Bengal paid a visit to Dr. Bose's private laboratory. On the 30th November 1917--the anniversary of his sixtieth birthday--he dedicated the Institute to the Nation, for the progress of Science and for the Glory of India.

THE AIMS OF THE INSTITUTE

In this Institute, Dr. Bose intends to go on with "the further and fuller investigation of the many and ever-opening problems of the nascent science which includes both Life and None Life" and wants to train up a devoted band of workers, with the Sanyasin mind, who would keep alive the flame kindled by him, and who, by acute observation and patient experiment would "wring out from Nature some of her most jealously guarded secrets" and who would thus lead to the establishment of a great Indian School of Science and to the "building of the greater India yet to be." There would be no academic limitation here to the widest possible diffusion of knowledge. The facilities of the Institute would be available to workers from all countries and there would be no desecration of knowledge here by its utilisation for personal gain--no patent would be taken of the discoveries here made. The high aim of a great Seat of Learning would be sought to be maintained here. The lectures here given would not be mere repetitions, second-hand knowledge but would announce for the first time to the world the new discoveries here made.

The efforts of Dr. Bose have also animated our countrymen. Maharaja Sir Manindra Chandra Nandy of Kasimbazar has made a gift of two lakhs to the Institute. Mr. S. R. Bomanji has given one lakh. Mr. Moolraj Khatao has endowed the Institute with two lakh and a quarter. Other contributions are still pouring in.

A GREAT 'SADHAK'

With a true Sanyasin spirit, Dr. Bose applied himself to the study of Nature. His ardour was ever compassable. Even the limitations of the senses would hardly fetter him in his explorations in the regions of the Unknown. He expended the range of perception by means of wonderfully sensitive instrumental devices. By acute observations and patient experiment he wrung out from Nature some of her most jealously guarded secrets in the realm of Electric Radiation, which "literally filled with wonder and admiration" the greatest scientist of the age. Allurements of great material prospects--which might lead him to the path of immense fortune--came to him, in the shape of the patents of his inventions. But they had no attraction for him. In utter disregard of all worldly advancement, he continued in his pursuit of knowledge.

In pursuit of his investigations on Electric Radiation, he was unconsciously led into the border region of Physics and Physiology. He caught a glimpse of ineffable wonder that remained hidden behind the view. He attempted to lift the veil. And, at once, difficulties presented themselves one after another. An unfamiliar caste in the domain of Science got offended. He was asked not to encroach on the special preserve of the Physiologists and, as he did not pay any heed to the warning, misrepresentations began. Even the evidence of his supersensitive appliances failed to convince many. And the Royal Society withheld publication of his researches. He was recompensed with ridicule and reviling. The limited facilities that he had in the prosecution of his researches were in danger of being withdrawn. But he had a burning Faith in the Vision and was not to be boggled at with these difficulties. He became stronger in his determination. Realising an inner call, he dedicated himself for the establishment of the truth underlying his Faith. He cast his life, as an offering, regarding success and failure as one, and engaged himself in a protracted struggle to get behind the deceptive seeming into the reality that remained unseen. After years of sustained efforts, he succeeded in overcoming almost insuperable difficulties in the way of the realisation of the great dream of his life. The closed doors at last opened, and the seemingly impossible became possible. The secret of the plant world stood revealed by the autographs of the plants themselves. "It was when I came upon the mute witness of these self-made records," said Sir J. C. Bose, when he stood before the Royal Institution "and perceived in them one phase of a pervading unity that bears within it all things: the mote that quivers in ripples of light, the teeming life upon our earth, and the radiant suns that shine above us--it was then that I understood for the first time a little of that message proclaimed by my ancestors on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago."

"They who see but one in all the changing manifestations of this universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth--unto none else, unto none else."

The Rishis of ancient India, by their intense Yoga, realised the One in the Many. But Sir Jagadis Chandra, by rigorous experimental demonstration, realised a Unity amidst Diversity. He perceived that "there was no such thing as brute matter, but that spirit suffused matter in which it was enshrined."

EFFECT OF HIS WORK

It is impossible to estimate the effect of his epoch-making researches. The psychic stone flung by him into the pool of physical botany, has made the ripples run in so many directions. There have been produced "unexpected revelations in plant life, foreshadowing the wonders of the highest animal life." And there "have opened out very extended regions of inquiry in Physics, in Physiology, in Medicine, in Agriculture and even in Psychology. Problems, hitherto regarded as insoluble, have now been brought within the sphere of experimental investigation."

Sir J.C. Bose has not only extended the distant boundaries of Science, but, by his peculiarly Indian contribution, has secured a recognised place for India and has revived a hope in the Indian mind that India may yet regain a place among the intellectual nations of the world. Men like him are rare not only in India but rare any where in the world. May he live long!

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

The following is a substance of the Address delivered in Bengali by Prof. J. C. Bose, on the 14th April 1911, as the President of the Bengal Literary Conference, which met in the Easter of 1911 at Mymensing.

In this Literary Congress it would appear that you have interpreted Letters in no exclusive sense. We are not met to discuss the place that literature is to hold in the gospel of beauty. Rather are we set upon conceiving of her in larger ways. To us to-day literature is no mere ornament, no mere amusement. Instead of this, we desire to bring beneath her shadow all the highest efforts of our minds. In this great communion of learning, this is not the first time that a scientific man has officiated as priest. The chair which I now occupy has already been held by one whom I love and honour as friend and colleague, and glory in our countryman, Praphulla Chandra Ray. In honouring him, your Society has not only done homage to merit, but has also placed before our people a lofty and inclusive ideal of literature.

You are aware that in this West, the prevailing tendency at the moment is, after a period of synthesis, to return upon the excessive sub-division of learning. The result of this specialisation is rather to accentuate the distinctiveness of the various sciences, so that for a while the great unity of all tends perhaps to be obscured. Such a caste system in scholarship, undoubtedly helps at first, in the gathering and classification of new material. But if followed too exclusively, it ends by limiting the comprehensiveness of truth. The search is endless. Realisation evades us.

The Eastern aim has been rather the opposite, namely, that in the multiplicity of phenomena, we should never miss their underlying unity. After generations of this quest, the idea of unity comes to us almost spontaneously, and we apprehend no insuperable obstacle in grasping it.

I feel that here in this Literary Congress, this characteristic idea of unity has worked unconsciously. We have never thought of narrowing the bounds of literature by a jealous definition of its limits. On the contrary, we have allowed its empire to extend. And you have felt that this could be adequately done only, if in one place you could gather together all that we are seeking, all that we are thinking, all that we are examining. And for this you have to-day invited those who sing along with those who meditate, and those who experiment. And this is why, though my own life has been given to the pursuit of science, I had yet no hesitation in accepting the honour of your invitation.

POETRY AND SCIENCE

The poet, seeing by the heart, realises the inexpressible and strived to give it expression. His imagination soars, where the sight of others fails, and his news of realm unknown finds voice in rhyme and metre. The path of the scientific man may be different, yet there is some likeness between the two pursuits. Where visible light ends, he still follows the invisible. Where the note of the audible reaches the unheard, even there he gathers the tremulous message. That mystery which lies behind the expressed, is the object of his questioning also; and he, in his scientific way, attempts to render its abstruse discoveries into human speech.

This vast abode of nature is built in many wings, each with its own portal. The physicist, the chemist, and the biologist entering by different doors, each one his own department of knowledge, comes to think that this is his special domain, unconnected with that of any other. Hence has arisen our present rigid division of phenomena, into the worlds of the inorganic, vegetal, and sentient. But this attitude of mind is philosophical, may be denied. We must remember that all enquiries have as their goal the attainment of knowledge in its entirety. The partition walls between the cells in the great laboratory are only erected for a time to aid this search. Only at that point where all lines of investigation meet, can the whole truth be found.

Both poet and scientific worker have set out for the same goal, to find a unity in the bewildering diversity. The difference is that the poet thinks little of the path, whereas the scientific man must not neglect. The imagination of the poet has to be unrestricted. The intuitions of emotion cannot be established by rigid proof. He has, therefore, to use the language of imagery, adding constantly the words 'as if.'

The road that the scientific man has to tread is on the other hand very rugged, and in his pursuit of demonstration he must pay a severe restraint on his imagination. His constant anxiety is lest he should be self-deceived. He has, therefore, at every step to compare his own thought with the external fact. He has remorselessly to abandon all in which these are not agreed. His reward is that he gets, however little is certain, forming a strong foundation for what is yet to come. Even by this path of self-restraint and verification, however, he is making for a region surpassing wonder. In the range of that invisible light, gross objects cease to be a barrier, and force and matter become less aesthetic. When the veil is suddenly lifted, upon the vision hitherto unsuspected, he may for a moment lose his accustomed self-restraint and, exclaim "not 'as if'--but the thing itself!"

INVISIBLE LIGHT.

In illustration of this sense of wonder which links together poetry and science, let me allude briefly to a few matters that belong to my own small corner in the great universe of knowledge, that of light invisible and of life unvoiced. Can anything appeal more to the imagination than the fact that we can detect the peculiarities in the internal molecular structure of an opaque body by means of light that is itself invisible? Could anything have been more unexpected than to find that a sphere of China-clay focuses invisible light more perfectly than a sphere of glass focuses the visible; that in fact, the refractive power of this clay to electric radiation is at least as great as that of the most costly diamond to light? From amongst the innumerable octaves of light, there is only one octave, with power to excite the human eye. In reality, we stand, in the midst of a luminous ocean, almost blind! The little that we can see is nothing, compared to the vastness of that which we cannot. But it may be said that out of the very imperfection of his senses man has been able, in science, to build for himself a raft of thought by which to make daring adventure on the great seas of the unknown.

UNVOICED LIFE.

Again, just as, in following up light from visible to invisible, our range of investigation transcends our physical sight, so also does our power of sympathy become extended, when we pass from the voiced to the unvoiced, in the study of life: Is there then any possible relation between our own life and that of the plant world? That there may be such a relation, some of the foremost of scientific men have denied. So distinguished a leader as the late Burdon-Sanderson declared that the majority of plants were not capable of giving any answer, by either mechanical or electrical excitement, to an outside stock. Pfeffer, again, and his distinguished followers, have insisted that the plants have neither a nervous system, nor anything analogous to the nervous impulse of the animal. According to such a view, that two streams of life, in plant and animal, flow side by side, but under the guidance of different laws. The problems of vegetable life are, it must be said, extremely obscure, and for the penetrating of that darkness we have long had to wait for instruments of a superlative sensitiveness. This has been the principal reason for our long clinging to mere theory, instead of looking for the demonstration of facts. But to learn the truth we have to put aside theories, and rely only on direct experiment. We have to abandon all our preconceptions, and put our questions direct, insisting that the only evidence we can accept is that which bears the plant's own signature.

How are we to know what unseen changes take place within the plant? If it be excited or depressed by some special circumstance, how are we, on the outside, to be made aware of this? The only conceivable way would be, if that were possible, to detect and measure the actual response of the organism to a definite external blow. When an animal receives an external shock it may answer in various ways if it has voice, by a cry; if it be dumb, by the movement of its limbs. The external shock is a stimulus; the answer of the organism is the response. If we can find out the relation between this stimulus and the response, we shall be able to determine the vitality of the plant at that moment. In an excitable condition, the feeblest stimulus will evoke an extraordinarily large response: in a depressed state, even a strong stimulus evokes only a feeble response; and lastly, when death has overcome life, there is an abrupt end of the power to answer at all.