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. Afterrelease 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 dangerthat 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 ofwhich 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.
QUESTOF 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 theirArghyaand 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 claimmany 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 havecaste 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 soinclusive 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 theeLet all the people wish for theeStand steadfast and immovableBe like a mountain unremovedAnd 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 bythe 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 isthe 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 yourthought 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 gunscame 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 responsegrows 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 inour Government to popular needs and wishes is happily illustrated at a most opportune moment from the statements in the recentGazette of Indiaand 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 moreto 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.
THEVOICE 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. Thepersonal, 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 Societyhonoured 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 stupendousgeneralisation; 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 wasprepared 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.
THETWO 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 ofthe 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 purchasedat 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 anecessity 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 theadvancementand 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 scholarsfrom 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, hewill 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 theInstitute. 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 bridgedover 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 discoveryof "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 plantsand 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 theconditions 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 tobe 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 ofgrowth, 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 anAmlakifruit. This was his last possession and anguished cry was that since he had nothing more to give, let the half of theAmlakibe accepted as his final gift.
Asoka's emblem of theAmlakiwill 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 theAmlakithat 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.
THEPRAYING 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. Thenext 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. Thenumerous 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 isa 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.
VISUALISATIONOF 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 bycontact, 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 thewar 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.
THEMAGNETIC 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.
SIRJ. 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 theirpresence 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 explainedhow 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.
SOME PHENOMENA OF PLANT LIFE
The Professor explained next other experiments which he had performed on plants and whose results had exhibited the close parallel which plant life bears to human life. With the aid of another delicate instrument he showed how the growth of plants can be influenced by drugs and the demonstration on the screen of the manner in which the slow growth of a plant can be thus expedited was one of extraordinary interest. One was able to see the flame of life moving up the screen and recording at intervals the stages of growth, a lengthening of the intervals between each recorded glow illustrating the acceleration of growth as soon as the drug was applied. The instruments necessary to record this phenomenon are of extraordinary delicacy, and barely survived the strain of the journey from Calcutta.
ELECTRICITYAND AGRICULTURE
The last experiment was in regard to the effect of electricity on plant life. He referred particularly to the fact that it was his aim to discover the law of growth and atrophy among plants. Such a discovery had a great bearing on the future of agriculture and would revolutionise world thought. Electricity, he explained and illustrated, would promote or retard the growth of life by reaction. In England and other countries electricity had been applied to agriculture but without exact knowledge of its varying effect on plant life. He then showed by another apparatus of extreme delicacy that electricity might retard and even repel as well as promote the growth of plant life. But if the law of growth and decay could be ascertained, it was possible to regulate the control of life under most varied conditions.
—Amrita Bazar Patrika, 29-1-1918.
UNITYOF LIFE
Under the auspices of the Bombay University, Sir Jagadis Chundar Bose delivered on Thursday, the 31st January 1918, a lecture on the "Unity of Life." It was illustrated by lantern slides and an instructive exposition was given of some of his unique discoveries in the realm of Plant Life....
HIDDEN HISTORY IN PLANTS LIFE
"The subject of my address to-night is the 'Unity of Life.' Under a placid exterior there is a hidden history on the life of the plant. Is it possible to make the plants write down their own autographs and thus reveal their history? In order to succeed in this we have first to discover some compulsive force which will make the plant give an answering signal, secondly, we have to invent some instrument of extreme delicacy for the automatic conversion of these signals into an intelligent script; and last of all, we have ourselves to learn the nature of the hieroglyphics."
Sir J. C. Bose then explained the principle of his epoch-making Resonant Recorder which writesdown the perception period of the plant within a thousandth part of a second, and writes down the action of light and warmth and drugs on the plant; the effect of vitiated air, of passing clouds, of excess of food and of drink.
"The plant is very human in its virtues and weakness. Plants like animals become exalted, grow tired or despond. An easy green-house life makes them less than themselves, overgrown and flabby, capable of response, till they have become hardened by adversity to a fuller existence. A time comes when after an answer to a supreme shock, there is a sudden end of the plant's power to give any further response. This supreme shock is the shock of death. Even in this crisis there is no immediate change in the placid appearance of the plant. Drooping and withering are events that occur long after death itself. How does the plant then give its last answer? In man at the critical moment a spasm passes through the whole body and similarly in the plant I find a great contractile spasm takes place. This is accompanied by an electrical spasm also. In the script of the Death Recorder the line that up to this time was being drawn, become suddenly reversed and then ends. This is the last answer of the plant.
"These our mute companions, silently growing beside our door, have now told us the tale of theirlife-tremulousness and their death-spasm in script that is as inarticulate as they. May it not be said that this story has a pathos of its own beyond any that we may have conceived?