CONTENTS (continued 3)

UNIVERSAL SENSITIVENESS OF MATTER

In the course of his investigations Dr. Bose found that the uncertainty of the early type of his receiver was brought on by fatigue, and that the curve of fatigue of his instrument closely resembled the fatigue curve of animal muscle. He was soon able to remove the 'tiredness' of his receiver by application of suitable stimulants; application of certain poisons, on the other hand, permanently abolished its sensitiveness. Dr. Bose was thus amazed at the discovery that inorganic matter was anything but inert, but that its particles were a thrill under the action of multitudinous forces that were playing on it. The lecturer was at this time constrained to choose whether to go on with the practical applications of his work, the success of which appeared to be assured, or to throw himself into a vortex of conflict for the establishment of some truth the glimmerings of which he was then but dimly beginning to perceive. It is very curious that the human mind is sometimes so constituted that it rejects lines of least resistance in favour of the more difficult path. Dr. Bose chose the more difficult path, and entered into a phase of activity which was to test all his strength.

CASTE IN SCIENCE

Dr. Bose's discovery of Universal sensitiveness of matter was communicated to the Royal Society on May 7th, 1901, when he himself gave a successful experimental demonstration. His communication was, however, strongly assailed by Sir John Burden-Sanderson, the leading physiologist, and one or two of his followers. They had nothing to urge against his experiments but objected to a physicist straying into the preserve that had been specially reserved for the physiologist. He had unwittingly strayed into the domain of a new and unfamiliar caste system and offended its etiquette. In consequence of this opposition his paper, which was already in print, was not published. This is not by any means to be regarded as an injustice done to a stranger. Even Lord Rayleigh, who occupies an unique position in the world of science, was subjected to fierce attacks from the chemists, because he, a physicist, had ventured to predict that the air would be found to contain new elements not hitherto discovered.

It is natural that there should be prejudice against all innovations, and the attitude of Sir John Burden-Sanderson is easily explained. Unfortunately there was another incident about which similar explanation could not be urged. Dr. Bose's Paper had been placed in the archives of the Royal Society, so that technically there was no publication. And it came about that eight months after the reading of his Paper, another communication found publication in the Journal of a different society which was practically the same as Dr. Bose's but without any acknowledgment. The author of this communication was a gentleman who had previously opposed him at the Royal Society. The plagiarism was subsequently discovered and led to much unpleasantness. It is not necessary to refer any more to the subject except as explanation of the fact that the determined hostility and misrepresentations of one man succeeded for more than ten years to bar all avenues of publication for his discoveries. But every cloud has its silver lining; this incident secured for him many true friends in England who stood for fair play, and whose friendship has proved to be a source of great encouragement to him.

FURTHER DIFFICULTIES

Dr. Bose's next work in 1903 was the discovery of the identity of response and of automatic activity in plant and animal and of the nervous impulse in plant. These new contributions were regarded as of such great importance that the Royal Society showed its special appreciation by recommending it to be published in their Philosophical transactions. But the same influence which had hitherto stood in his way triumphed once more, and it was at the very last moment that the publication was withheld. The Royal Society, however, informed him that his results were of fundamental importance, but as they were so wholly unexpected and so opposed to the existing theories, that they would reserve their judgment until, at some future time, plants themselves could be made to record their answers to questions put to them. This was interpreted in certain quarters here as the final rejection of Dr. Bose's theories by the Royal Society, and the limited facilities which he had in the prosecution of his researches were in danger of being withdrawn. And everything was dark for him for the next ten years. The only thought that possessed him was how to make the plant give testimony by means of its own autograph.

LONG DELAYED SUCCESS

And when the night was at its darkest, light gradually appeared, and after innumerable difficulties had been overcome his Resonant Recorder was perfected, which enabled the plant to tell its own story. And in the meantime something still more wonderful came to pass. Hitherto all gates had been barred and he had to produce his passports everywhere. He now found friends who never asked him for credentials. His time had come at last. The Royal Society found his new methods most convincing and honoured him by publication of his researches in the Philosophical transactions. And his discoveries, which had so long remained in obscurity, found enthusiastic acceptance.

Though his theories had thus received acceptance from the leading scientific men of the Royal Society, there was yet no general conviction of the identity of life reactions in plant and animal. No amount of controversy can remove the tendency of the human mind to follow precedents. The only thing left was to make the plant itself bear witness before the scientific bodies in the West, by means of self-records. At the recommendation of the Minister of Education, and of the Government of Bengal, the Secretary of State sanctioned his scientific deputation to Europe and America.

JOURNEY OF INDIAN PLANT ROUND THE WORLD

The special difficulty which he had to contend against lay in the fact that the only time during which the plant flourished at all in the West, was in the months of July and August, when the Universities and scientific societies were in vacation. The only thing left was to take the bold step of carrying growing plants from India and trust to human ingenuity to keep them alive during the journey. Four plants, two Mimosas and two Telegraph plants, were taken in a portable box with glass cover, and never let out of sight. In the Mediterranean they encountered bitter cold for the first time and nearly succumbed. They were unhappier still in the Bay of Biscay, and when they reached London there was a sharp frost. They had to be kept in a drawing room lighted by gas, the deadly influence of which was discovered the next morning when all the plants were found to be apparently killed. Two had been killed, and the other two were brought round after much difficulty. The plants were at once transferred to the hot-house in Regents Park. For every demonstration in Dr. Bose's private Laboratory at Maida Vale, the plant had to be brought and returned in a taxicab with closed doors so that no sudden chill might kill them. When travelling, the large box in which they were, could not be trusted out of sight in the luggage van. They had practically to be carried in a reserved compartment. The unusual care taken of the box always roused the greatest curiosity, and in an incredibly short time large crowds would gather. When travelling long distances, for example from London to Vienna, the carriage accommodation had to be secured in advance. It was this that saved Dr. Bose from being interned in Germany, where he was to commence his lectures on the 4th August. He was to start for the University of Bonn on the 2nd, but on account of hasty mobilisation of troops in Germany he could not secure the reserved accommodation. Two days after came the proclamation of War!

OUTCOME OF HIS WORK

The success of his scientific mission exceeded his most sanguine expectations. The work in which he long persevered in isolation and under most depressing difficulties, bore fruit at last. Apart from the full recognition that the progress of the world's science would be incomplete without India's special contributions, mutual appreciation and better understanding resulted from his visit. One of the greatest of Medical Institutions, the Royal Society of Medicine, has been pleased to regard his address before the society as one of the most important in their history and they expected that their science of medicine would be materially benefited by the researches that are being carried out by him in India. India has also been drawn closer to the great seats of learning in the West, to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; for there also the methods of inquiry initiated here have found the most cordial welcome. Many Indian students find their way to America, strangers in a strange land; hitherto they found few to advise and befriend them. It will perhaps be different now, since their leading Universities have begged from India the courtesy of hospitality for their post graduate scholars. Some of these Universities again have asked for a supply of apparatus specially invented at Dr. Bose's laboratory which in their opinion will mark an epoch in scientific advance.

THE INEFFABLE WONDER BEHIND THE VEIL

As for the research itself, he said its bearings are not exclusively specialistic, but touch the foundation of various branches of science. To mention only a few; in medicine it had to deal with the fundamental reaction of protoplasm to various drugs, the solution of the problem why an identical agent brings about diametrically opposite effects in different constitutions; in the science of life it dealt with the new comparative physiology by which any specific characteristic of a tissue is traced from the simplest type in plant to the most complex in the animal; the study of the mysterious phenomenon of death and the accurate determination of the death point and the various conditions by which this point may be dislocated backwards and forwards; in psychology it had to deal with the unravelling of the great mystery that underlies memory and tracing it backwards to latent impressions even in the inorganic bodies which are capable of subsequent revival; and finally, the determination of the special characteristic of that vehicle through which sensiferous impulses are transmitted and the possibility of changing the intensity and the tone of sensation. All these investigations, Dr. Bose said, are to be carried out by new physical methods of the utmost delicacy. He had in these years been able to remove the obstacles in the path and had lifted the veil so as to catch a glimpse of the ineffable wonder that had hitherto been hidden from view. The real work, he said, had only just begun.

A SOCIAL GATHERING

At the Social Gathering held on the 16th December 1915, in the compound of the Calcutta Presidency College, to meet him after his highly successful tour through Europe, America and Japan, Dr. Bose spoke as follows:—

He said that it was his rare good fortune to have been amply rewarded for the hardships and struggles that he had gone through by the generous and friendly feelings of his colleagues and the love and trust of his pupils. He would say a few words regarding his experience in the Presidency College for more than three decades, which he hoped would serve to bring all who loved the Presidency College—present and past pupils and their teachers—in closer bonds of union. He would speak to them what he had learnt after years of patient labour, that the impossible became possible by persistent and determined efforts and adherence to duty and entire selflessness. The greatest obstacle often arises out of foolish misunderstanding of each other's ideals, such as the differing points of view, first of the Indian teacher, then of his western colleague, and last but not least, the point of view of the Indian pupils themselves. In all these respects his experience had been wide and varied. He had both been an undergraduate and a graduate of the Calcutta University with vivid realization of an Indian student's aspirations; he had then become a student of conservative Cambridge and democratic London. And during his frequent visits to Europe and America he had become acquainted with the inner working of the chief universities of the world. Finally he had the unique privilege of being connected with the Presidency College for thirty-one years, from which no temptation could sever him. He had the deepest sense of the sacred vocation of the teacher. They may well be proud of a consecrated life—consecrated to what? To the guidance of young lives, to the making of men, to the shaping and determining of souls in the dawn of their existence, with their dreams yet to be realised.

Education in the West and in the East showed how different customs and ways might yet express a common ideal. In India the teacher was, like the head of a family, reverenced by his pupils so deeply as to show itself by touching the feet of their master. This in no servile act if we come to think of it; since it is the expression of the pupils' desire for his master's blessings, called down from heaven in an almost religious communion of souls. This consecration is renewed every day, calling forth patient foresight of the teacher. As the father shows no special favour, but lets his love and compassion go out to the weakest, so it is with the Indian teacher and his pupil. There is the relation something very human, something very ennobling. He would say it was essentially human rather than distinctively Eastern. For do we not find something very like it in Mediaeval Europe? There too before the coming of the modern era with its lack of leisure and its adherence to system and machinery, there was a bond as sacred between the master and his pupils. Luther used to salute his class every morning with lifted hat, "I bow to you, great men of the future, famous administrators yet to be, men of learning, men of character who will take on themselves the burden of the world." Such is the prophetic vision given to the greatest of teachers. The modern teacher from England will set before him an ideal not less exalted—regarding his pupils as his comrades, he as an Englishman will instill into them greater virility and a greater public spirit. This will be his special contribution to the forming of our Indian youths.

Turning to the Indian students he could say that it was his good fortune never to have had the harmonious relation between teacher and pupils in any way ruffled during his long connection with them for more than three decades. The real secret of success was in trying at times to see things from the student's point of view and to cultivate a sense of humour enabling him to enjoy the splendid self-assurance of youth with a feeling not unmixed with envy. In essential matters, however, one could not wish to meet a better type or one more quickly susceptible to finer appeals to right conduct and duty as Indian students. Their faults are rather of omission than of commission, since in his experience he formed that the moment they realised their teachers to be their friends, they responded instantly and did not flinch from any test, however severe, that could be laid on them.

—The Presidency College Magazine. Vol. II, pages 339-341.

LIGHT VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE

On the 14th January 1916, Dr. J. C. Bose delivered a public lecture, on Light Visible and Invisible, at the third Indian Science Congress held at Lucknow, before a crowded audience which included the Lieutenant-Governor (Sir James Meston).

Dr. Bose, in course of his lecture, spoke of the imperfection of our senses. Our ear, for example, fails to respond to all sounds. There are many sounds to which we are deaf. This was because our ear was tuned to answer to the narrow range of eleven octaves of sound vibrations. He showed a remarkable experiment of an artificial ear which remained irresponsive to various sounds, but when a particular note, to which it was tuned, was sounded even at the distant end of the hall, this ear picked it up and responded violently. As there were sounds audible and inaudible, so there were lights visible and invisible. The imperfection of our eye as a detector of ether vibrations was, however, far more serious. The eye could detect ether vibrations lying within a single octave—between 400 to 800 billion vibrations per second. Comparatively slow vibrations of ether did not affect our eye and the disturbances they give rise to well-known as electric waves. The electric waves, predicted by Maxwell, were discovered by Hertz. These waves were about three metres long. They were about ten million times larger than the beams of visible light. Dr. Bose showed that the three short electric waves have the same property as a beam of light, exhibiting reflections, refraction, even total reflection, through a black crystal, double refraction, polarisation, and rotation of the plane of polarisation. The thinnest film of air was sufficient to produce total reflection of visible light with its extremely short wave lengths. But with the new electric waves which he produced, Dr. Bose showed that the critical thickness of air space determined by the refracting power of the prison and by the wave length of electric oscillations. Dr. Bose determined the index of refraction of electric waves for different materials, and eliminated a difficulty which presented itself in Maxwell's theory as to the relation between the index of refraction of light and the di-electric constant of insulators. He also measured the wave lengths of various oscillations. The order to produce short electric oscillations, to detect them and study their optical properties, he had to construct a large number of instruments. It was a hard task to produce very short electric waves which had enough energy to be detected, but Dr. Bose overcame this difficulty by constructing radiators or oscillators of his own type, which emitted the shortest waves with sufficient energy. As a receiver he used a sensitive metallic coherer, which in itself led to new and important discoveries. When electric waves fall on a loose contact between two pieces of metals, the resistance of the contact changes and a current passes through the contact indicating the existence of electrical oscillations. Dr. Bose discovered the surprising fact that with potassium metal the resistance of the contact increases under the action of electric waves and that this contact exhibits an automatic recovery. He found further that the change of the metallic contact resistance when acted upon by electric waves, is a function of the atomic weight. These phenomena led to a new theory of metallic coherers. Before these discoveries it was assumed that the particles of the two metallic pieces in contact are, as it were, fused together, so that the resistance decreases. But the increasing resistance appearing for some elements, led to the theory that the electric forces in the waves produced a peculiar molecular action or a re-arrangement of the molecules, which may either increase or decrease the contact resistance.

—Pioneer,—16-1-1916.

HINDU UNIVERSITY ADDRESS

The foundation of the Hindu University was laid by Lord Hardinge on the 4th February 1916. "Many striking addresses were delivered on the occasion. Professor J.C. Bose in his masterly address went to the root of the matter and pointed in an inspiring manner what should be done to make the Hindu University worthy of its name. He deprecated a repetition of the Universities of the West." He said:—

In tracing the characteristic phenomenon of life from simple beginnings in that vast region which may be called unvoiced, as exemplified in the world of plants, to its highest expression in the animal kingdom, one is repeatedly struck by the one dominant fact that in order to maintain an organism at the height of its efficiency something more than a mechanical perfection of its structure is necessary. Every living organism, in order to maintain its life and growth, must be in free communion with all the forces of the Universe about it.

STIMULUS WITHIN AND WITHOUT

Further, it must not only constantly receive stimulus from without, but must also give out something from within, and the healthy life of the organism will depend on these two fold activities of inflow and outflow. When there is any interference with these activities, then morbid symptoms appear, which ultimately must end in disaster and death. This is equally true of the intellectual life of a Nation. When through narrow conceit a Nation regards itself self-sufficient and cuts itself from the stimulus of the outside world, then intellectual decay must inevitably follow.

SPECIAL FUNCTION OF A NATION

So far as regards the receptive function. Then there is another function in the intellectual life of a Nation, that of spontaneous outflow, that giving out of its life by which the world is enriched. When the Nation has lost this power, when it merely receives, but cannot give out, then its healthy life is over, and it sinks into a degenerate existence which is purely parasitic.

HOW INDIA CAN TEACH

How can our Nation give out of the fulness of the life that is in it, and how can a new Indian University help in the realisation of this object? It is clear that its power of directing and inspiring will depend on its world status. This can be secured to it by no artificial means, nor by any strength in the past; and what is the weakness that has been paralysing her activities for the accomplishment of any great scientific work? There must be two different elements, and these must be evenly balanced. Any excess of either will injure it.

HOW TO SECURE THIS STATUS

This world status can only be won by the intrinsic value of the great contributions to be made by its own Indian scholars for the advancement of the world's knowledge. To be organic and vital our new University must stand primarily for self-expression, and for winning for India a place she has lost. Knowledge is never the exclusive possession of any particular race, nor does it recognise geographical limitations. The whole world is interdependent, and a constant stream of thought had been carried out throughout the ages enriching the common heritage of mankind. Although science was neither of the East nor of the West but international, certain aspects of it gained richness by reason of their place of origin.

In any case if India need to make any contribution to the world it should be as great as the hope they cherished for her. Let them not talk of the glories of the past till they have secured for her, her true place among the intellectual nations of the world. Let them find out how she had fallen from her high estate and ruthlessly put an end to all that self satisfied and little-minded vanity which had been the cause of their fatal weakness. What was it that stood in her way? Was her mind paralysed by weak superstitious fears? That was not so; for her great thinkers, the Rishis, always stood for freedom of intellect and while Galileo was imprisoned and Bruno burnt for their opinions, they boldly declared that even the Vedas were to be rejected if they did not conform to truth. They urged in favour of persistent efforts for the discovery of physical causes yet unknown, since to them nothing was extra-physical but merely mysterious because of a hitherto unascertained cause. Were they afraid that the march of knowledge was dangerous to true faith? Not so. For their knowledge and religion were one.

These are the hopes that animate us. For there is something in the Hindu culture which is possessed of extraordinary latent strength by which it has resisted the ravages of time and the destructive changes which have swept over the earth. And indeed a capacity to endure through infinite transformations must be innate in that mighty civilisation which has seen the intellectual culture of the Nile Valley, of Assyria and of Babylon war and wane and disappear and which to-day gazes on the future with the same invincible faith with which it met the past.

—Modern Review, vol. XIX, pages 277, 278.

THE HISTORY OF A FAILURE THAT WAS GREAT

At the invitation of the President and the committee of the Faridpore Industrial Exhibition, Dr. J. C. Bose gave a lecture on the life of his father, the late Babu Bhugwan Chunder Bose, who founded the Exhibition at Faridpore, where he was the sub-divisional officer, 50 years ago. It was published in the Modern Review for February 1917—volume xxi, p. 221. In course of his address, said Dr. Bose:—

It is the obvious, the insistent, the blatant that often blinds us to the essential. And in solving the mystery that underlies life, the enlightenment will come not by the study of the complex man, but through the simpler plant. It is the unsuspected forces, hidden to the eyes of men,—the forces imprisoned in the soil and the stimuli of alternating flash of light and the gloomings of darkness these and many others will be found to maintain the ceaseless activity which we know as the fulness of throbbing life.

This is likewise true of the congeries of life which we call a society or a nation. The energy which moves this great mass in ceaseless effort to realise some common aspiration, often has its origin in the unknown solitudes of a village life. And thus the history of some efforts, not forgotten, which emanated from Faridpore, may be found not unconnected with which India is now meeting her problems to-day. How did these problems first dawn in the minds of some men who forecast themselves by half a century? How fared their hopes, how did their dreams become buried in oblivion? Where lies the secret of that potency which makes certain efforts apparently doomed to failure, rise renewed from beneath the smouldering ashes? Are these dead failures, so utterly unrelated to some great success that we may acclaim to day? When we look deeper we shall find that this is not so, that as inevitable as in the sequence of cause and effect, so unrelenting must be the sequence of failure and success. We shall find that the failure must be the antecedent power to lie dormant for the long subsequent dynamic expression in what we call success. It is then and then only that we shall begin to question ourselves which is the greater of the two, a noble failure or a vulgar success.

As a concrete example, I shall relate the history of a noble failure which had its setting in this little corner of the earth. And if some of the audience thought that the speaker has been blessed with life that has been unusually fruitful, they will soon realise that the power and strength that nerved me to meet the shocks of life were in reality derived at this very place, where I witnessed the struggle which overpowered a far greater life.

STIMULUS OF CONTACT WITH WESTERN CULTURE

An impulse from outside reacts on impressionable bodies in two different ways, depending on whether the recipient is inert or fully alive. The inert is fashioned after the pattern of the impression made on it, and this in infinite repetition of one mechanical stamp. But when an organism is fully alive, the answering reaction is often of an altogether different character to the impinging stimulus. The outside shocks stir up the organism to answer feebly or to utmost in ways as multitudinous and varied as life itself. So the first impetus of Western education impressed itself on some in a dead monotony of imitation of things Western; while in others it awakened all that was greatest in the national memory. It is the release of some giant force which lay for long time dormant. My father was one of the earliest to receive the impetus characteristic of the modern epoch as derived from the West. And in his case it came to pass that the stimulus evoked the latent potentialities of his race for evolving modes of expression demanded by the period of transition in which he was placed. They found expression in great constructive work, in the restoration of quiet amidst disorder, in the earliest effort to spread education both among men and women, in questions of social welfare, in industrial efforts, in the establishment of people's Bank and in the foundation of industrial and technical schools. And behind all these efforts lay a burning love for his country and its nobler traditions.

MATTERS EDUCATIONAL

In educational matters he had very definite ideas which is now becoming more fully appreciated. English schools were at that time not only regarded as the only efficient medium for instruction. While my father's subordinates sent their children to the English schools intended for gentle folks, I was sent to the vernacular school where my comrades were hardy sons of toilers and of others who, it is now the fashion to regard, were belonging to the depressed classes. From these who tilled the ground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening corn, and the sons of the fisher folk, who told stories of the strange creatures that frequented the unknown depths of mighty rivers and stagnant pools, I first derived the lesson of that which constitutes true manhood. From them too I drew my love of nature. When I came home accompanied by my comrades I found my mother waiting for us. She was an orthodox Hindu, yet the "untouchableness" of some of my school fellows did not produce any misgivings in her. She welcomed and fed all these as her own children; for it is only true of the mother heart to go out and enfold in her protecting care all those who needed succour and a mother's affection. I now realise the object of my being sent at the most plastic period of my life to the vernacular school, where I was to learn my own language, to think my own thoughts and to receive the heritage of our national culture through the medium of our own literature. I was thus to consider myself one with the people and never to place myself in an equivocal position of assumed superiority. This I realised more particularly when later I wished to go to Europe and to compete for the Indian Civil Service, his refusal as regards that particular career was absolute. I was to rule nobody but myself, I was to be a scholar not an administrator.

THE HISTORY OF A FAILURE THAT WAS GREAT

There has been some complaint that the experiment of meeting out cut and dried moral texts as a part of school routine has not proved to be so effective as was expected by their promulgators. The moral education which we received in our childhood was very indirect and came from listening to stories recited by the 'Kathas' on various incidents connected with our great epics. Their effect on our minds was very great; this may be because our racial memory makes us more prone to respond to certain ideals that have been impressed on the consciousness of the nation. These early appeals to our emotions have remained persistent; the only difference is that which was there as a narrative of incidents more or less historical, is now realised as eternally true, being an allegory of the unending struggle of the human soul in its choice between what is material and that other something which transcends it. The only pictures now in my study are a few frescoes done for me by Abanindra Nath Tagore and Nanda Lal Bose. The first fresco represents Her, who is the Sustainer of the Universe. She stands pedestalled on the lotus of our heart. The world was at peace; but a change has come. And She under whose Veil of Compassion we had been protected so long, suddenly flings us to the world of conflict. Our great epic, the Mahabharata, deals with this great conflict, and the few frescoes delineate some of the fundamental incidents. The coming of the discord is signalled by the rattle of dice, thrown by Yudhisthira, the pawn at stake, being the crown. Two hostile arrays are set in motion, mighty Kaurava armaments meeting in shock of battle the Pandava host with Arjuna as the leader, and Krishna as his Divine Charioteer. At the supreme moment Arjuna had flung down his earthly weapon, Gandiva. It was then that the eternal conflict between matter and spirit was decided. The next panel shows the outward or the material aspect of victory. Behind a foreground of waving flags is seen the battle field of Kurukshetra with procession of white-clad mourning women seen by fitful lights of funeral pyres. In the last panel is seen Yudhisthira renouncing the fruits of his victory setting out on his last journey. In front of him lies the vast and sombre plain and mountain peaks, faintly visible by gleams of unearthly light, unlocalised but playing here and there. His wife and his brothers had fallen behind and dropped one by one. There is to be no human companion in his last journey. The only thing that stood by him and from which he had never been really separated is Dharma or the Spirit of Righteousness.

LIFE OF ACTION

Faridpur at that time enjoyed a notoriety of being the stronghold of desperate characters, dacoits by land and water. My father had captured single-handed one of the principal leaders, whom he sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. After release he came to my father and demanded some occupation, since the particular vocation in which he had specialised was now rendered impossible. My father took the unusual course to employ him as my special attendant to carry me, a child of four, on his back to the distant village school. No nurse could be tenderer than this ex-leader of lawless men, whose profession had been to deal out wounds and deaths. He had accepted a life of peace but he could not altogether wipe out his old memories. He used to fill my infant mind with the stories of his bold adventures, the numerous fights in which he had taken part, the death of his companions and his hair-breadth escapes. Numerous were the decorations he bore. The most conspicuous was an ugly mark on his breast left by an arrow and a hole on the thigh caused by a spear thrust. The trust imposed on this marauder proved to be not altogether ill placed for once in a river journey we were pursued by several long boats filled with armed dacoits. When these boats came too near for us to effect an escape the erstwhile dacoit leader, my attendant, stood up and gave a peculiar cry, which was evidently understood. For the pursuing boats vanished at the signal.

INDUSTRIAL EFFORTS

I come now to another period of his life fifty years from now, when he foresaw the economic danger that threatened his country. This Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition was one of the first means he thought of to avert the threatened danger. Here also he attempted to bring together other activities. Evening entertainments were given by the performances of "Jatras," which have been the expression of our national drama and which have constantly enriched our Bengali literature by the contributions of village bards and composers. There were athletic tournaments also and display of physical strength and endurance. He also established here the people's Bank, which is now in a most flourishing condition. He established industrial and technical schools, and it was there that the inventive bend of my mind received its first impetus. I remember the deep impression made on my mind by the form of worship rendered by the artisans to Viswakarma God in his aspect as the Great Artificer: His hand it was that was moulding the whole creation; and it seemed that we were the instruments in his hand, through whom he intended to fashion some Great Design.

In practical agriculture my father was among Indians one of the first to start a tea industry in Assam, now regarded as one of the most flourishing. He gave practically everything in the starting of some Weaving Mills. He stood by this and many other efforts in industrial developments. The success of which I spoke did not come till long after—too late for him to see it. He had come before the country was ready, and it happened to him as it must happen to all pioneers. Every one of his efforts failed and the crash came. And a great burden fell on us which was only lifted by our united effects just before his work here was over.

A failure? Yes but not ignoble or altogether futile. Since it was through the witnessing of this struggle that the son learned to look on success or failure as one, to realise that some defeat was greater than victory. And if my life in any way proved to be fruitful, then that came through the realisation of this lesson.

To me his life had been one of blessing and daily thanksgiving. Nevertheless every one had said that he wrecked his life which was meant for far greater things. Few realise that out of the skeletons of myriad lives have been built vast continents. And it is on the wreck of a life like his and of many such lives there will be built the Greater India yet to be. We do not know why it should be so, but we do know that the Earth Mother is hungry for sacrifice.

QUEST OF TRUTH AND DUTY

Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose delivered the following Address, on the 25th February 1917, to the students of the Presidency College on receiving their Arghya and congratulations on the occasion of his knighthood. It was published in the Modern Review for March 1917—Volume XXI, p. 343.

In your congratulations for the recent honour, you have overlooked a still greater that came to me a year ago, when I was gazetted as your perpetual professor, so that the tie which binds me to you is never to be severed. Thirty-two years ago I sought to be your teacher. For the trust that you imposed on me could I do anything less than place before you the highest that I knew? I never appealed to your weaknesses but your strength. I never set before you that was easy but used all the compulsion for the choice of the most difficult. And perhaps as a reward for these years of effort I find all over India those who have been my pupils occupying positions of the highest trust and responsibility in different walks of life. I do not merely count those who have won fame and success but I also claim many others who have taken up the burden of life manfully and whose life of purity and unselfishness has brought gleams of joy in suffering lives.

THE LAW UNIVERSAL

Through science I was able to teach you how the seeming veils the real; how though the garish lights dazzle and blind us, there are lights invisible, which glow persistently after the brief flare burns out. One came to realise how all matter was one, how unified all life was. In the various expressions of life even in the realm of thought the same Universal law prevails. There was no such thing as brute matter, but that spirit suffused matter in which it was enshrined. One also realised dimly a mysterious Cyclic Law of Change, seen not merely in inorganic matter but also in organised life and its highest manifestations. One saw how inertness passes into the climax of activity and how that climax is perilously near its antithetic decline. This basic change puzzles us by its seeming caprice not merely in our physical instruments but also in the cycle of individual life and death and in the great cycle of the life and death of nations. We fail to see things in their totality and we erect barriers that keep kindreds apart. Even science which attempts to rise above common limitations, has not escaped the doom which limited vision imposes. We have caste in science as in religion and in politics, which divides one into conflicting many. The law of Cyclic change follows us relentlessly even in the realm of thought. When we have raised ourselves to the highest pinnacle, through some oversight we fall over the precipice. Men have offered their lives for the establishment of truth. A climax is reached after which the custodians of knowledge themselves bar further advance. Men who have fought for liberty impose on themselves and on others the bond of slavery. Through centuries have men striven to erect a mighty edifice in which Humanity might be enshrined; through want of vigilance the structure crumbled into dust. Many cycles must yet be run and defeats must yet be borne before man will establish a destiny which is above change.

And through science I was able to teach you to seek for truth and help to discover it yourself. This attitude of detachment may possess some advantage in the proper understanding of your duties. You will have, besides, the heritage of great ideals that have been handed down to you. The question which you have to decide is duty to yourself, to the king and to your country. I shall speak to you of the ideals which we cherish about these duties.

DUTY TO SELF

As regards duty to self, can there be anything so inclusive as being true to your manhood? Stand upright and do not be either cringing or vulgarly self-assertive. Be righteous. Let your words and deeds correspond. Lead no double life. Proclaim what you think right.

IDEAL OF KINGSHIP

The Indian ideal of kingship will be clear to you if I recite the invocation with which we crowned our kings from the Vedic Times:

"Be with us. We have chosen thee Let all the people wish for thee Stand steadfast and immovable Be like a mountain unremoved And hold thy kingship in thy grasp."

We have chosen thee, our prayers have consecrated thee, for all the wishes of the people went with thee. Thou art to stand as mountain unremoved, for thy throne is planted secure on the hearts of thy people. Stand steadfast then, for we have endowed thee with power irresistible. Fall therefore not away; but let thy sceptre be held firmly in thy grasp.

Which is more potent, Matter or Spirit? Is the power with which the people endow their king identical with the power of wealth with which we enrich him by paying him his Royal dues? We make him irresistible not by wealth but by the strength of our lives, the strength of our mind, may, we have to pay him more according to our ancient Lawgivers, in as much as the eighth part of our deeds and virtues, and the merit we have ourselves acquired. We can only make him irresistible by the strength of our lives, the strength of our minds, and the strength that comes out of righteousness.

DUTY TO OUR COUNTRY

And lastly, what are our duties to our country? These are essentially to win honour for it and also win for it security and peace. As regards winning honour for our country, it is true that while India has offered from the earliest times welcome and hospitality to all peoples and nationalities her children have been subjected to intolerable humiliations in other countries even under the flag of our king.

There can be no question of the fundamental duty of every Indian to stand up and uphold the honour of his country and strove for the removal of wrong.

The general task of redressing wrong is not a problem of India alone, but one in which the righteous men are interested the world over. For wrong cries for redress everywhere, in the clashings interests of the rich and poor, between capital and labour, between those who hold the power and those from whom it has been withheld,—in a word in the struggle of the Disinherited.

When any man is rendered unable to uphold his manhood and self-respect and woman are deprived of the chivalrous protection and consideration of men and subjected to degradation, the general level of manhood or womanhood in the world is lowered. It then becomes an outrage to humanity and a challenge to all men to safeguard the sacredness of our common human nature.

What is the machinery which sets a going a world movement for the redress of wrong? For this I need not cite instances from the history of other countries but take one which is known to you and in which the living actors are still among us. In the midst of the degradation of his countrymen in South Africa, there stood up a man himself nurtured in luxury, to take up the burden of the disinherited. His wife too stood by him, a lady of gentle birth. We all know who that man is—he is Gandhi,—and what humiliations and suffering he went through. Do you think he suffered in vain and that his voice remained unheard? It was not so, for in the great vortex of passion for Justice, there were caught others—men like Polak and Andrews. Are they your countrymen? Not in the narrow sense of the word but truly in a larger sense, that these who choose to bear and suffer belong to one clan the clan from which Kshatriya Chivalry is recruited. The removal of suffering and of the cause of suffering is the Dharma of the strong Kshatriya. The earth is the wide and universal theatre of man's woeful pageant. The question is who is to suffer more than his share. Is the burden to fall on the weak or the strong? Is it to be under hopeless compulsion or of voluntary acceptance?

DEFENCE OF HOMELAND

In your services for your country there is no higher at the present moment than to ensure for her security and peace. We have so long enjoyed the security of peace without being called upon to maintain it. But this is no longer so.

At no time within the recent history of India has there been so quick a readjustment and appreciation as regards proper understanding of the aspiration of the Indian people. This has been due to what India has been able to offer not merely in the regions of thought but also in the fields of battle.

MASS RESPONSE

And remember that when the world is in conflagration, this corner which has hitherto escaped it, will not evade the peril which threatens it. The march of disaster will then be terribly rapid. You have soon to prepare yourself against any hostile sides. You can only withstand it if the whole people realise the imminent danger. You can by your thought and by your action awaken and influence the multitude. Do not have any misgivings about the want of long previous preparations. Have you not already seen how mind triumphs over matter and have not some of you with only a few months' preparation stood fearless at your post in Mesopotamia and won recognition by your calm collectedness and true heroism? They may say that you are but a small handful, what of the vast illiterate millions? Illiterate in what sense? Have not the ballads of these illiterates rendered into English by our Poet touched profoundly the hearts of the very elect of the West? Have not the stories of their common life appealed to the common kinship of humanity? If you still have some doubts about the power of the multitude to respond instantly to the call of duty, I shall relate an incident which came within my own personal experience. I had gone on a scientific expedition to the borders of the Himalayan terrai of Kumaun; a narrow ravine was between me and the plateau on the other side. Terror prevailed among the villagers on the other side of the ravine; for a tigress had come down from the forest. And numerous had been the toll in human lives exacted. Petitions had been sent up to the Government and questions had been asked in Parliament. A reward of Rs. 500 had been offered. Various captains in the army with battery of guns came many a time, but the reward remained unclaimed. The murderess of the forest would come out even in broad day-light and leisurely take her victims from away their companions. Nothing could circumvent her demoniac cunning. When all hopes had nearly vanished, the villagers went to Kaloo Singh, who possessed an old matchlock. At the special sanction of the Magistrate he was allowed to buy a quantity of gunpowder; the bullets he himself made by melting bits of lead. With his primitive weapon with the entreaties of his villagers ringing in his ears Kaloo Singh started on his perilous journey. At midday I was startled by the groanings of some animals in pain. The tigress had sprung among a herd of buffalo and with successive strokes of its mighty paws had killed two buffaloes and left them in the field. Kaloo Singh waited there for the return of the tigress to the kill. There was not a tree near by; only there was a low bush behind which he lay crouched. After hours of waiting as the sun was going down he was taken aback by the sudden apparition of the tigress which stood within six feet of him. His limbs had become half paralysed from cold and his crouching position. Trying to raise his gun he could take no aim as his arm was shaking with involuntary fear. Kaloo Singh explained to me afterwards how he succeeded in shaking off his mortal terror. "I quietly said to myself, Kaloo Singh, Kaloo Singh, who sent you here? Did not the villagers put their trust on you! I could then no longer lie in hiding, and I stood up and something strange and invigorating crept up strength into my body. All the trembling went and I became as hard as steel. The tigress had seen me and with eyes blazing crouched for the spring lashing its tail. Only six feet lay between. She sprang and my gun also went off at the same time and she missed her aim and fell dead close to me." That was how a common villager went off to meet death at the call of something for which he could give no name and the mother and wife of Kaloo Singh had also bidden him go. There are millions of Kaloo Singhs with mother and sisters and wife to send them forth. And you too have many loved ones who would themselves bid you arm for the defence of your homes.

DIFFERENCE OF TEMPERAMENT

The issue is clear, and immediate action is imperative. But action is delayed by misunderstanding arising out of temperamental differences between the Governing Class and the People. Curiously enough the respective responsive characteristics of the Anglo Saxon and the Indians are paralleled by the two types of responses seen in all living matter. In the one type the response is slow but proportionate to the stimulus that excites it. The response grows with the strength of external force. In the other it is quite different—here it is an all-or-none principle. It either responds to the utmost or nothing at all. This is also illustrated in the different racial characteristics. The Anglo Saxon has even by his rights by struggle, step by step. The insignificant little has, by accumulation, became large, and which has been gained, has been gained for all time. But in the Indian the ideal and the emotional are the only effective stimulus. The ideal of his King is Rama, who renounced his kingdom and even his beloved for an idea. One day a king and another day a bare-footed wanderer in the forest! Who cares? All or nothing!

The concessions made by a modern form of Government safeguarded by necessary limitations may appear almost as grudging gifts. The Indian wants something which comes with unhesitating frankness and warmth and strikes his ideality and imagination. But ancient and modern kingship are sometimes at one in direct and spontaneous pronouncement of the royal sympathy. Such was the Proclamation of Queen Victoria which stirred to its depths the popular heart.

"In the Prosperity of Our subjects will be our strength, in their contentment Our security, in their Gratitude Our best Reward."

That there are increasingly frequent reflexes in our Government to popular needs and wishes is happily illustrated at a most opportune moment from the statements in the recent Gazette of India and cables received from London. In the former we find that the Viceroy and his council had recommended the abolition of the system of indentured labour. In the telegram from London Mr. Chamberlain states that the Viceroy has informed him that Indians will be eligible for commissions in the New Defence of India Army.

MARCH OF WORLD TRAGEDY

In the meantime the Embodiment of World Tragedy is marching with giant strides. Brief will be his hesitation whether he will choose to step first to the East or to the West. Already across the Atlantic, they are preparing for the dreaded visitation. In the farthest East they have long been prepared. We alone are not ready. Pity for our helplessness will not stay the impending disaster, rather provoke it. When that comes, as assuredly it will unless we are prepared to resist, havoc will be let loose and horrors perpetrated before which the imagination quails back in dismay.

I have tried to lay before you as dispassionately as I could the issues involved. But some of you may cry out and say, we can not live in cold scientific and philosophic abstractions. Emotion is more to us than pure reasoning. We cannot stay in this indecision which is paralysing our wills and crushing the soul out of us. The world is offering their best and behold them marching to be immolated so that by the supreme offering of death they might win safety and honor for their motherland. There is no time for wavering. We too will throw in our lot with those who are fighting. They say that by our lives we shall win for our birth-land an honoured place in their federation. We shall trust them. We shall stand by their side and fight for our home and homeland. And let Providence shape the Issue.

THE VOICE OF LIFE

The following is the Inaugural Address delivered by Sir J. C. Bose, on the 30th November 1917, in dedicating the Bose Institute to the Nation.

I dedicate to-day this Institute—not merely a Laboratory but a Temple. The power of physical methods applies for the establishment of that truth which can be realised directly through our senses, or through the vast expansion of the perceptive range by means of artificially created organs. We still gather the tremulous message when the note of the audible reaches the unheard. When human sight fails, we continue to explore the region of the invisible. The little that we can see is as nothing compared to the vastness of that which we cannot. Out of the very imperfection of his senses man has built himself a raft of thought by which he makes daring adventures on the great seas of the Unknown. But there are other truths which will remain beyond even the supersensitive methods known to science. For these we require faith, tested not in a few years but by an entire life. And a temple is erected as a fit memorial for the establishment of that truth for which faith was needed. The personal, yet general, truth and faith whose establishment this Institute commemorates is this: that when one dedicates himself wholly for a great object, the closed doors shall open, and the seemingly impossible will become possible for him.

Thirty-two years ago I chose teaching of science as my vocation. It was held that by its very peculiar constitution, the Indian mind would always turn away from the study of Nature to metaphysical speculations. Even had the capacity for inquiry and accurate observation been assumed present, there were no opportunities for their employment; there were no well-equipped laboratories nor skilled mechanicians. This was all too true. It is for man not to quarrel with circumstances but bravely accept them; and we belong to that race and dynasty who had accomplished great things with simple means.

FAILURE AND SUCCESS

This day twenty-three years ago, I resolved that as far as the whole-hearted devotion and faith of one man counted, that would not be wanting and within six months it came about that some of the most difficult problems connected with Electric Waves found their solution in my Laboratory and received high appreciation from Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh and other leading physicists. The Royal Society honoured me by publishing my discoveries and offering, of their own accord, an appropriation from the special Parliamentary Grant for the advancement of knowledge. That day the closed gates suddenly opened and I hoped that the torch that was then lighted would continue to burn brighter, and brighter. But man's faith and hope require repeated testing. For five years after this, the progress was interrupted; yet when the most generous and wide appreciation of my work had reached almost the highest point there came a sudden and unexpected change.

LIVING AND NON-LIVING

In the pursuit of my investigations I was unconsciously led into the border region of physics and physiology and was amazed to find boundary lines vanishing and points of contact emerge between the realms of the Living and Non-living. Inorganic matter was found anything but inert; it also was a thrill under the action of multitudinous forces that played on it. A universal reaction seemed to bring together metal, plant and animal under a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same phenomena of fatigue and depression, together with possibilities of recovery and of exaltation, yet also that of permanent irresponsiveness which is associated with death. I was filled with awe at this stupendous generalisation; and it was with great hope that I announced my results before the Royal Society,—results demonstrated by experiments. But the physiologists present advised me, after my address, to confine myself to physical investigations in which my success had been assured, rather than encroach on their preserve. I had thus unwittingly strayed into the domain of a new and unfamiliar caste system and so offended its etiquette. An unconscious theological bias was also present which confounds ignorance with faith. It is forgotten that He, who surrounded us with this ever-evolving mystery of creation, the ineffable wonder that lies hidden in the microcosm of the dust particle, enclosing within the intricacies of its atomic form all the mystery of the cosmos, has also implanted in us the desire to question and understand. To the theological bias was added the misgivings about the inherent bent of the Indian mind towards mysticism and unchecked imagination. But in India this burning imagination which can extort new order out of a mass of apparently contradictory facts, is also held in check by the habit of meditation. It is this restraint which confers the power to hold the mind in pursuit of truth, in infinite patience, to wait, and reconsider, to experimentally test and repeatedly verify.

It is but natural that there should be prejudice, even in science, against all innovations; and I was prepared to wait till the first incredulity could be overcome by further cumulative evidence. Unfortunately there were other incidents and misrepresentations which it was impossible to remove from this insulating distance. Thus no conditions could have been more desperately hopeless than those which confronted me for the next twelve years. It is necessary to make this brief reference to this period of my life; for one who would devote himself to the search of truth must realise that for him there awaits no easy life, but one of unending struggle. It is for him to cast his life as an offering, regarding gain and loss, success and failure, as one. Yet in my case this long persisting gloom was suddenly lifted. My scientific deputation in 1914, from the Government of India, gave the opportunity of giving demonstrations of my discoveries before the leading scientific societies of the world. This led to the acceptance of my theories and results, and the recognition of the importance of the Indian contribution to the advancement of the world's science. My own experience told me how heavy, sometimes even crushing, are the difficulties which confront an inquirer here in India; yet it made me stronger in my determination, that I shall make the path of those who are to follow me less arduous, and that India, is never to relinquish what has been won for her after years of struggle.

THE TWO IDEALS

What is it that India is to win and maintain? Can anything small or circumscribed ever satisfy the mind of India? Has her own history and the teaching of the past prepared her for some temporary and quite subordinate gain? There are at this moment two complementary and not antagonistic ideals before the country. India is drawn into the vortex of international competition. She has to become efficient in every way,—through spread of education, through performance of civic duties and responsibilities, through activities both industrial and commercial. Neglect of these essentials of national duty will imperil her very existence; and sufficient stimulus for these will be found in success and satisfaction of personal ambition.

But these alone do not ensure the life of a nation. Such material activities have brought in the West their fruit, in accession of power and wealth. There has been a feverish rush even in the realm of science, for exploiting applications of knowledge, not so often for saving as for destruction. In the absence of some power of restraint, civilisation is trembling in an unstable poise on the brink of ruin. Some complementary ideal there must be to save man from that mad rush which must end in disaster. He has followed the lure and excitement of some insatiable ambition, never pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate object for which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He forgot that far more potent than competition was mutual help and co-operation in the scheme of life. And in this country through milleniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, sought for the realisation of the highest ideal of life—not through passive renunciation, but through active struggle. The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired nothing has nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven and won, can enrich the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious experience. In India such examples of constant realisation of ideals through work have resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition. And by her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted herself through infinite transformations. Thus while the soul of Babylon and the Nile Valley have transmigrated, ours still remains vital and with capacity of absorbing what time has brought, and making it one with itself.

The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renunciation in response to the highest call of humanity is the other and complementary ideal. The motive power for this is not to be found in personal ambition but in the effacement of all littlenesses, and uprooting of that ignorance which regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at others' loss. This I know, that no vision of truth can come except in the absence of all sources of distraction, and when the mind has reached the point of rest.

Public life, and the various professions will be the appropriate spheres of activity for many aspiring young men. But for my disciples, I call on those very few, who, realising inner call, will devote their whole life with strengthened character and determined purpose to take part in that infinite struggle to win knowledge for its own sake and see truth face to face.

ADVANCEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE

The work already carried out in my laboratory on the response of matter, and the unexpected revelations in plant life, foreshadowing the wonders of the highest animal life, 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. These inquiries are obviously more extensive than those customary either among physicists or physiologists, since demanding interests and aptitudes hitherto more or less divided between them. In the study of Nature, there is a necessity of the dual view point, this alternating yet rhythmically unified interaction of biological thought with physical studies, and physical thought with biological studies. The future worker with his freshened grasp of physics, his fuller conception of the inorganic world, as indeed thrilling with "the promise and potency of life" will redouble his former energies of work and thought. Thus he will be in a position to win now the old knowledge with finer sieves, to research it with new enthusiasm and subtler instruments. And thus with thought and toil and time he may hope to bring fresher views into the old problems. His handling of these will be at once more vital and more kinetic, more comprehensive and unified.

The farther and fuller investigation of the many and ever-opening problems of the nascent science which includes both Life and Non-Life are among the main purposes of the Institute I am opening to-day; in these fields I am already fortunate in having a devoted band of disciples, whom I have been training for the last ten years. Their number is very limited, but means may perhaps be forthcoming in the future to increase them. An enlarging field of young ability may thus be available, from which will emerge, with time and labour, individual originality of research, productive invention and some day even creative genius.

But high success is not to be obtained without corresponding experimental exactitude, and this is needed to-day more than ever, and to-morrow yet more again. Hence the long battery of supersensitive instruments and apparatus, designed here, which stand before in their cases in our entrance hall. They will tell you of the protracted struggle to get behind the deceptive seeming into the reality that remained unseen;—of the continuous toil and persistence and of ingenuity called forth for overcoming human limitations. In these directions through the ever-increasing ingenuity of device for advancing science, I see at no distant future an advance of skill and of invention among our workers; and if this skill be assured, practical applications will not fail to follow in many fields of human activity.

The advance of science is the principal object of this Institute and also the diffusion of knowledge. We are here in the largest of all the many chambers of this House of Knowledge—its Lecture Room. In adding this feature, and on a scale hitherto unprecedented in a Research Institute, I have sought permanently to associate the advancement of knowledge with the widest possible civic and public diffusion of it; and this without any academic limitations, henceforth to all races and languages, to both men and women alike, and for all time coming.

The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand knowledge. They will announce to an audience of some fifteen hundred people, the new discoveries made here, which will be demonstrated for the first time before the public. We shall thus maintain continuously the highest aim of a great Seat of Learning by taking active part in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge. Through the regular publication of the Transactions of the Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the whole world. The discoveries made will thus become public property. No patents will ever be taken. The spirit of our national culture demands that we should for ever be free from the desecration of utilising knowledge for personal gain. Besides the regular staff there will be a selected number of scholars, who by their work have shown special aptitude, and who would devote their whole life to the pursuit of research. They will require personal training and their number must necessarily be limited. But it is not the quantity but quality that is of essential importance.

It is my further wish, that as far as the limited accommodation would permit, the facilities of this Institute should be available to workers from all countries. In this I am attempting to carry out the traditions of my country, which so far back as twenty-five centuries ago, welcomed all scholars from different parts of the world, within the precincts of its ancient seats of learning, at Nalanda and at Taxilla.

THE SURGE OF LIFE

With this widened outlook, we shall not only maintain the highest traditions of the past but also serve the world in nobler ways. We shall be at one with it in feeling the common surgings of life, the common love for the good, the true and the beautiful. In this Institute, this Study and Garden of Life, the claim of art has not been forgotten, for the artist has been working with us, from foundation to pinnacle, and from floor to ceiling of this very Hall. And beyond that arch the Laboratory merges imperceptibly into the garden, which is the true laboratory for the study of Life. There the creepers, the plants and the trees are played upon by their natural environments,—sunlight and wind, and the chill at midnight under the vault of starry space. There are other surroundings also, where they will be subjected to chromatic action of different lights, to invisible rays, to electrified ground or thunder-charged atmosphere. Everywhere they will transcribe in their own script the history of their experience. From this lofty point of observation, sheltered by the trees, the student will watch this panorama of life. Isolated from all distractions, he will learn to attune himself with Nature; the obscuring veil will be lifted and he will gradually come to see how community throughout the great ocean of life outweighs apparent dissimilarity. Out of discord he will realise the great harmony.

THE OUTLOOK

These are the dreams that wove a network round my wakeful life for many years past. The outlook is endless, for the goal is at infinity. The realisation cannot be through one life or one fortune but through the co-operation of many lives and many fortunes. The possibility of a fuller expansion will depend on very large endowments. But a beginning must be made, and this is the genesis of the foundation of this Institute. I came with nothing and shall return as I came; if something is accomplished in the interval, that would indeed be a privilege. What I have I will offer, and one who had shared with me the struggles and hardships that had to be faced, has wished to bequeath all that is hers for the same object. In all my struggling efforts I have not been altogether solitary while the world doubted, there had been a few, now in the City of Silence, who never wavered in their trust.

Till a few weeks ago it seemed that I shall have to look to the future for securing the necessary expansion of scope and for permanence of the Institute. But response is being awakened in answer to the need. The Government have most generously intimated their desire to sanction grants towards placing the Institute on a permanent basis the extent of which will be proportionate to the public interest in this national undertaking. Out of many who would feel an interest in securing adequate Endowment, the very first donations have come from two of the merchant princes of Bombay, to whom I had been personally unknown.

A note that touched me deeply came from some girl students of the Western Province, enclosing their little contribution "for the service of our common motherland." It is only the instinctive mother-heart that can truly realise the bond that draws together the nurselings of the common homeland. There can be no real misgiving for the future when at the country's call man offers the strength of his life and woman her active devotion, she most of all, who has the greater insight and larger faith because of the life of austerity and self-abnegation. Even a solitary wayfarer in the Himalayas has remembered to send me message of cheer and good hope. What is it that has bridged over the distance and blotted out all differences? That I will come gradually to know; till then it will remain enshrined as a feeling. And I go forward to my appointed task, undismayed by difficulties, companioned by the kind thoughts of my well-wishers, both far and near.

INDIA'S SPECIAL APTITUDES IN CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

The excessive specialisation of modern science in the West has led to the danger of losing sight of the fundamental fact that there can be but one truth, one science which includes all the branches of knowledge. How chaotic appear the happenings in Nature? Is nature a Cosmos! in which the human mind is some day to realise the uniform march of sequence, order and law? India through her habit of mind is peculiarly fitted to realise the idea of unity, and to see in the phenomenal world an orderly universe. This trend of thought led me unconsciously to the dividing frontiers of different sciences and shaped the course of my work in its constant alternations between the theoretical and the practical, from the investigation of the inorganic world to that of organised life and its multifarious activities of growth, of movement, and even of sensation. On looking over a hundred and fifty different lines of investigations carried on during the last twenty-three years, I now discover in them a natural sequence. The study of Electric Waves led to the devising of methods for the production of the shortest electric waves known and these bridged over the gulf between visible and invisible light; from this followed accurate investigation on the optical properties of invisible waves, the determination of the refractive powers of various opaque substances, the discovery of effect of air film on total reflection and the polarising properties of strained rocks and of electric tourmalines. The invention of a new type of self-recovering electric receiver made of galena was the fore-runner of application of crystal detectors for extending the range of wireless signals. In physical chemistry the detection of molecular change in matter under electric stimulation, led to a new theory of photographic action. The fruitful theory of stereochemistry was strengthened by the production of two kinds of artificial molecules, which like the two kinds of sugar, rotated the polarised electric wave either to the right or to the left. Again the 'fatigue' of my receivers led to the discovery of universal sensitiveness inherent in matter as shown by its electric response. It was next possible to study this response in its modification under changing environment, of which its exaltation under stimulants and its abolition under poisons are among the most astonishing outward manifestations. And as a single example of the many applications of this fruitful discovery, the characteristics of an artificial retina gave a clue to the unexpected discovery of "binocular alternation of vision" in man;—each eye thus supplements its fellow by turns, instead of acting as a continuously yoked pair, as hitherto believed.

PLANT LIFE AND ANIMAL LIFE

In natural sequence to the investigations of the response in 'inorganic' matter, has followed a prolonged study of the activities of plant-life as compared with the corresponding functioning of animal life. But since plants for the most part seem motionless and passive, and are indeed limited in their range of movement, special apparatus of extreme delicacy had to be invented, which should magnify the tremor of excitation and also measure the perception period of a plant to a thousandth part of a second. Ultra-microscopic movements were measured and recorded; the length measured being often smaller than a fraction of a single wave-length of light. The secret of plant life was thus for the first time revealed by the autographs of the plant itself. This evidence of the plant's own script removed the long-standing error which divided the vegetable world into sensitive and insensitive. The remarkable performance of the Praying Palm Tree of Faridpore, which bows, as if to prostrate itself, every evening, is only one of the latest instances which show that the supposed insensibility of plants and still more of rigid tree is to be ascribed to wrong theory and defective observation. My investigations show that all plants, even the trees, are fully alive to changes of environment; they respond visibly to all stimuli, even to the slight fluctuations of light caused by a drifting cloud. This series of investigations has completely established the fundamental identity of life-reactions in plant and animal, as seen in a similar periodic insensibility in both, corresponding to what we call sleep; as seen in the death-spasm, which takes place in the plant as in the animal. This unity in organic life is also exhibited in that spontaneous pulsation which in the animal is heart-beat; it appears in the identical effects of stimulants, anaesthetics and of poisons in vegetable and animal tissues. This physiological identity in the effect of drugs is regarded by leading physicians as of great significance in the scientific advance of Medicine; since here we have a means of testing the effect of drugs under conditions far simpler than those presented by the patient far subtler too, as well as more humane than those of experiments on animals.

Growth of plants and its variations under different treatment is instantly recorded by my Crescograph. Authorities expect this method of investigation will advance practical agriculture; since for the first time we are able to analyse and study separately the conditions which modify the rate of growth. Experiments which would have taken months and their results vitiated by unknown changes, can now be carried out in a few minutes.

Returning to pure science, no phenomena in plant life are so extremely varied or have yet been more incapable of generalisation than the "tropic" movements, such as the twining of tendrils, the heliotropic movements of some towards and of others away from light, and the opposite geotropic movements of the root and shoot, in the direction of gravitation or away from it. My latest investigations recently communicated to the Royal Society have established a single fundamental reaction which underlies all these effects so extremely diverse.

Finally, I may say a word of that other new and unexpected chapter which is opening out from my demonstration of nervous impulse in plants. The speed with which the nervous impulse courses through the plant has been determined; its nervous excitability and the variation of that excitability have likewise been measured. The nervous impulse in plant and in man is found exalted or inhibited under identical conditions. We may even follow this parallelism in what may seem extreme cases. A plant carefully protected under glass from outside shocks, looks sleek and flourishing; but its higher nervous function is then found to be atrophied. But when a succession of blows is rained on this effect and bloated specimen, the shocks themselves create nervous channels and arouse anew the deteriorated nature. And is it not shocks of adversity, and not cotton-wool protection, that evolve true manhood?

A question long perplexing physiologists and psychologists alike is that concerned with the great mystery that underlies memory. But now through certain experiments I have carried out, it is possible to trace "memory impressions" backwards even in inorganic matter, such latent impressions being capable of subsequent revival. Again the tone of our sensation is determined by the intensity of nervous excitation that reaches the central perceiving organ. It would theoretically be possible to change the tone or quality of our sensation, if means could be discovered by which the nervous impulse would become modified during transit. Investigation on nervous impulse in plants has led to the discovery of a controlling method, which was found equally effective in regard to the nervous impulse in animal.

Thus the lines of physics, of physiology and of psychology converge and meet. And here will assemble those who would seek oneness amidst the manifold. Here it is that the genius of India should find its true blossoming.

The thrill in matter, the throb of life, the pulse of growth, the impulse coursing through the nerve and the resulting sensations, how diverse are these and yet how unified! How strange it is that the tremor of excitation in nervous matter should not merely be transmitted but transmuted and reflected like the image on a mirror, from a different plane of life, in sensation and in affection, in thought and in emotion. Of these which is more real, the material body or the image which is independent of it? Which of these is undecaying, and which of these is beyond the reach of death?

It was a woman in the Vedic times, who when asked to take her choice of the wealth that would be hers for the asking, inquired whether that would win for her deathlessness. What would she do with it, if it did not raise her above death? This has always been the cry of the soul of India, not for addition of material bondage, but to work out through struggle her self-chosen destiny and win immortality. Many a nation had risen in the past and won the empire of the world. A few buried fragments are all that remain as memorials of the great dynasties that wielded the temporal power. There is, however, another element which find its incarnation in matter, yet transcends its transmutation and apparent destruction: that is the burning flame born of thought which has been handed down through fleeting generations.

Not in matter, but in thought, not in possessions or even in attainments but in ideals, are to be found the seed of immortality. Not through material acquisition but in generous diffusion of ideas and ideals can the true empire of humanity be established. Thus to Asoka to whom belonged this vast empire, bounded by the inviolate seas, after he had tried to ransom the world by giving away to the utmost, there came a time when he had nothing more to give, except one half of an Amlaki fruit. This was his last possession and anguished cry was that since he had nothing more to give, let the half of the Amlaki be accepted as his final gift.

Asoka's emblem of the Amlaki will be seen on the cornices of the Institute, and towering above all is the symbol of the thunderbolt. It was the Rishi Dadhichi, the pure and blameless, who offered his life that the divine weapon, the thunderbolt, might be fashioned out of his bones to smite evil and exalt righteousness. It is but half of the Amlaki that we can offer now. But the past shall be reborn in a yet nobler future. We stand here to-day and resume work to-morrow so that by the efforts of our lives and our unshaken faith in the future we may all help to build the greater India yet to be.

THE PRAYING PALM OF FARIDPUR

Under the presidency of Lord Ronaldshay Sir J. C. Bose delivered a lecture on Friday the 4th January 1918, at the "Bose Institute" on 'The Praying Palm-tree.' He said:

Perhaps no phenomenon is so remarkable and shrouded with greater mystery as the performances of a particular palm tree near Faridpore. In the evening while the temple bells ring calling upon people to prayer, this tree bows down as if prostrate itself. It erects its head again in the morning, and this process is repeated every day during the year. This extraordinary phenomenon has been regarded as miraculous, and pilgrims have been attracted in great numbers. It is alleged that offerings made to the tree, that is to say to the custodian of the tree, have been the means effecting marvellous cures. It is not necessary to pronounce any opinion on the subject; these cures may be taken as effective as other faith cures now so fashionable in the West.

I first obtained photographs of the two positions which proved the phenomenon to be real. The next thing was to devise special apparatus to record continuously the movement of the tree day and night. But difficulties were encountered in getting the consent of the proprietor to attach foreign instruments to the sacred tree. His misgivings were however removed when it was explained that the instruments were pure Swadeshi, being made in my Laboratory. The records of the Palm Tree showed that it fell with the rise of temperature, and rose with the fall. Records obtained with other trees brought out the extraordinary and unsuspected fact that all trees are moving—such movements being in response to changes in their environment.

SENSITIVE OR INSENSITIVE?

That not a "Mimosa" alone, but all plants are sensitive was demonstrated by some striking experiments. A spiral tendril, under electric shock was shown to writhe imitating the contortions of a tortured worm. In ordinary plants, all sides being equally sensitive contraction takes place on all directions with resulting neutral effect. Another striking experiment was to show how ordinary plants could be made sensitive by the mere process of amputation of the balancing half? Further experiments were shown demonstrating the effects of light, of warmth and other stimuli on the plant. Warmth worked antagonistically to light. The numerous permutations brought about by two changing variations were shown by a mechanical hand, which traced most complicated curves. In actual life the number of changing factors are very numerous, hence the intricacy involved in the manifestations of life.

The experiments that have been shown will help the audience to realise in some measure that the world we live in is not a theatre of caprice or chance, but that an all pervading law holds and regulates its destiny. We have seen that the vast expanse of life which is unvoiced, seemingly, so impassive, is instinct with sensibility. Thus the whole of the vegetable world, including rigid trees perceive the changes in their environment and respond to them by unmistakable signals. They thrill under light and become depressed by darkness; the warmth of summer and frost of winter, drought and rain, these and many other happenings leave a subtle impression on the life of the plant. By invention of apparatus of extreme delicacy, it is possible to make the plant itself write down the history of its own experience in a hieroglyphic which it is possible to decipher. From these pages, taken from the diary of the plant, it will perhaps be possible some day to get an insight into the great mystery that surrounds life itself. For I shall in the course of lectures given here show how the life of plants is a mere reflection of our own. I shall show how shocks and wounds affect them as they affect animals; how a common death-throb marks the crisis when life passes into death. The exuberance of life, on the other hand, will be shown by pulsing throbs of animal's heart and spontaneous beat in vegetal tissues. Another aspect of this exuberance will be shown in the imperceptible growth of plants. My recently invented Crescograph, to be exhibited at my lecture a fortnight hence, will magnify growth a million-fold and record ultra microscopic movements, smaller than a single wave length of light. By this apparatus growth will be instantaneously recorded and conditions which foster or inhibit growth discriminated. I shall demonstrate my discovery of the nervous system in plants, and show how shocks from without pass within, and how this nervous impulse modified during transit. It will further be shown how various stimulants, anesthetics and poison induce effects which are identical in man and in plant. It will be obvious how these studies will open new fields of inquiry in different branches of science; in Physiology and Psychology; in Medicine and in Agriculture.

—Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7-1-1918.

VISUALISATION OF GROWTH

Sir J. C. Bose delivered on the 18th January 1918, at the Bose Institute, the second of the series of discourses on revelations of plant life. This time the audience had the opportunity of witnessing the working of Bose's newly perfected Crescograph which is undoubtedly one of the marvels in modern Science. For this apparatus gives a visual demonstration of movements which are far beyond the highest powers of microscope. The invisible internal workings of life are thus for the first time revealed to man.

LAW VERSUS CAPRICE

The lecturer first described the infinite variations in life reactions in plants. The same external stimulus, he said apparently produces one effect in one plant; and precisely opposite in another. Some leaves move towards light; others are repelled by it. The root bends towards the centre of the earth, the shoot rises above away from it. Numerous other "tropic" movements are caused by contact, by electricity, by moisture and by invisible radiations. These effects appear so extremely diverse and capricious that some of the leading physiologists were forced to come to the conclusion that there was no law guiding such movement, but that the plant decides for itself what should be the effect of external conditions on it.

RECORD OF GROWTH

Most of these tropic movements are brought about by changes induced in growth by the action of different forces. But growth is so excessively slow that slight changes induced in it is impossible of detection. The proverbially slow paced snail moves two thousand times faster than the growing point of a plant. Hence to visualise growth and its changes, apparatus has to be invented which would magnify growth something like a million times. If such a thing were possible the pace of the snail would be quickened to the speed of a rifle bullet. The difficulties in connection with the devising and construction of apparatus with this extraordinary power appeared at first an impossibility. The Jewels for the fittings of the apparatus could not be found fine enough. The lecturer had to discard ordinary jewels for diamonds, such bearings being only made in Germany. But the outbreak of the war put an end to this source of supply. He had then to turn to resources available in India.

ADVANCE OF AGRICULTURE

The invention of method for immediate record of growth and its variations under various conditions is one of immense practical importance. Experiments on gigantic scales are in progress all over the world for this purpose. At Rothamstead, this work has been going on for more than half a century. The great Department of Agriculture in Mashington spends millions every year on such experiments, there being a thousand men employed in research. Recently many experiments have been undertaken on the effect of electricity on growth. The results obtained have been mostly contradictory. For real advance in agriculture we must first discover the laws of growth. Ordinary experiments on growth are of little value because they take weeks for detecting changes of growth which might have been brought about by charges in the environment. The only satisfactory method is to devise an apparatus which would make the plant itself record the rate of its growth, and the changes induced by food or treatment in the course of less than a minute, during which short time it is possible to maintain external conditions constant.

THE MAGNETIC CRESCOGRAPH

All the difficulties connected with the devising of apparatus has been completely removed by the lecturer's successful invention of his new magnetic crescograph in which practically unlimited magnification is obtained without the difficulties arising from the unavoidable friction of bearings. Magnetic forces are so exactly balanced that a disturbance in the balance caused by slightest movements such as that of growth is magnified ten millions of times. The application of this new principle will be of great importance in various investigations in Physics.

Sir J. C. Bose next demonstrated some marvellous results obtained with his apparatus. A seedling which on account of the Winter season appeared stationary jotted down by taps on a moving plate, the rate of its growth. The application of a chemical instantly arrested this growth, but an antidote timely applied, not only removed the torpor but enhanced the growth at an enormous rate. The life of the plant became pliant at the will of the experimenter, and nothing appeared more marvellous than the realisation that man has the power to pierce the veil that shrouds the mystery that had hitherto baffled him.

The lecturer explained how the effect of a given agent—a chemical solution or an electric current—is profoundly modified by the dose a given intensity, producing one effect and a different intensity giving rise to an effect diametrically opposite. This is the reason of the inexplicable anomalies which have baffled many investigators. Numerous are the forces which act on growth some helping, others retarding, the effects being further modified by the strength and duration of application. These factors that determine growth are each to be studied in detail, and the laws of effect of each to be discovered. There can be no real advance in scientific agriculture until this is done.

—Amrita Bazar Patrika, 19-1-1918.

SIR J. C. BOSE AT BOMBAY.

There was a brilliant gathering at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday the 22nd January 1918, when Sir Jagadis Bose gave a deeply interesting lecture on the history of the inception of his Institute in Calcutta and its aims together with an exposition of his scientific researches illustrated by lantern slides. The theatre was full long before the lecture commenced and several prominent people were present the bulk of the audience consisting of Indians.

Mr. Tilak in introducing the distinguished lecturer to the audience referred to Professor Bose's lasting services not only to the Indian nation but to the whole world. These references to Dr. Bose and his work elicited frequent applause from the large audience.

A FIFTY THOUSAND RUPEES LECTURE.

Sir Jagadis, who was accorded a most enthusiastic ovation on rising to address the gathering, acknowledged his gratitude to the public of Bombay who proved their appreciation of his work by their presence there that evening, and the fact that they had subscribed Rs. 50,000 for the occasion. He then gave a brief explanatory account of the nature and scope of his work, which he had planned and carried out alone for many years amidst many and varied difficulties. He gave an exposition by the aid of one of the delicate instruments of his own invention of how plants respond to various sounds and tunes and the beautiful colour display which was observed in this connection appeared as though he were a magician with a wand.

PLANTS UNDER ANAESTHETICS

The Doctor explained the meaning and significance of the thunderbolt which has been adopted as the symbol of the institution. He explained also the special uses to which the various parts of the buildings would be put. The fact was brought out that the entire building and grounds had been designed to suit the special needs of the Institute and care had been taken to make it as far as possible self contained. An interesting feature of the garden close to that portion which forms the residence of Sir Jagadis was the open platform perched above two trees, transplanted under anaesthetic conditions. A variety of apparatus is displayed under these trees and the platform is intended for observation or meditation or both. Dr. Bose here explained how trees when transplanted frequently died under the shock of the operation just as human being sometimes died, not from an operation but from the shock caused thereby. Similarly he had discovered and proved that trees could, like human beings, go through severe operations and survive the shock, if placed under the influence of an anaesthetic.