Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose, His Life and Speeches Part 5

[Footnote 29: Vide Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Vol. XX, p. 136]

[Footnote 30: Vide Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Vol. XX, p. 137.]

[Footnote 31: Vide Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Vol. XX, p. 137.]

[Footnote 32: Vide Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Vol. XX, p. 137.]

[Footnote 33: Vide Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Vol. XX, p. 139.]

[Footnote 34: Vide Modern Review--Vol. XVI, pp. 16, 118, 120.]

[Footnote 35: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 120, 121, 126.]

[Footnote 36: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVII, P. 559.]

[Footnote 37: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVI, p. 246.]

[Footnote 38: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVII, p. 559.]

[Footnote 39: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVIII, p. 1.]

[Footnote 40: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVIII. p. 214.]

[Footnote 41: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVIII. p. 215.]

[Footnote 42: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XVIII, p. 215.]

[Footnote 43: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XIX, p. 277.]

[Footnote 44: Vide 'Voice of Life'--Modern Review, Vol. XXII, p. 591.]

[Footnote 45: Presidency College Magazine, Vol. II, p. 335.]

[Footnote 46: Presidency College Magazine, Vol. II, p, 335.]

[Footnote 47: Vide 'Voice of Life'--Modern Review, XXII, p. 590.]

[Footnote 48: Vide 'Voice of Life'--Modern Review Vol XXII, p. 590.]

[Footnote 49: Vide Modern Review, Vol. XXI, p. 343.]

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

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

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

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

Realisation evades us.

The Eastern aim has been rather the opposite, namely, that in the multiplicity of phenomena, we should never miss their underlying unity.

After generations of this quest, the idea of unity comes to us almost spontaneously, and we apprehend no insuperable obstacle in grasping it.

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

POETRY AND SCIENCE

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

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

Both poet and scientific worker have set out for the same goal, to find a unity in the bewildering diversity. The difference is that the poet thinks little of the path, whereas the scientific man must not neglect.

The imagination of the poet has to be unrestricted. The intuitions of emotion cannot be established by rigid proof. He has, therefore, to use the language of imagery, adding constantly the words 'as if.'

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

INVISIBLE LIGHT.

In ill.u.s.tration of this sense of wonder which links together poetry and science, let me allude briefly to a few matters that belong to my own small corner in the great universe of knowledge, that of light invisible and of life unvoiced. Can anything appeal more to the imagination than the fact that we can detect the peculiarities in the internal molecular structure of an opaque body by means of light that is itself invisible?

Could anything have been more unexpected than to find that a sphere of China-clay focuses invisible light more perfectly than a sphere of gla.s.s focuses the visible; that in fact, the refractive power of this clay to electric radiation is at least as great as that of the most costly diamond to light? From amongst the innumerable octaves of light, there is only one octave, with power to excite the human eye. In reality, we stand, in the midst of a luminous ocean, almost blind! The little that we can see is nothing, compared to the vastness of that which we cannot.

But it may be said that out of the very imperfection of his senses man has been able, in science, to build for himself a raft of thought by which to make daring adventure on the great seas of the unknown.

UNVOICED LIFE.

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

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

We might therefore have detected the internal condition of the plant, if, by some inducement, we could have made it write down its own responses. If we could once succeed in this apparently impossible task we should still have to learn the new language and the new script. In a world of so many different scripts, it is certainly undesirable to introduce a new one! I fear the Uniform Script a.s.sociation will cherish a grievance against us for this. It is fortunate however that the plant-script bears, after all, a certain resemblance to the Devanagari--inasmuch as it is totally unintelligible to any but the very learned!

But there are two serious difficulties in our path; first, to make the plant itself consent to give its evidence; second, through plant and instrument combined, to induce it to give it in writing. It is comparatively easy to make a rebellious child obey: to extort answers from plants is indeed a problem! By many years of close contiguity, however, I have come to have some understanding of their ways. I take this opportunity to make public confession of various acts of cruelty which I have from time to time perpetrated on unoffending plants, in order to compel them to give me answers. For this purpose, I have devised various forms of torment,--pinches simple and revolving, p.r.i.c.ks with needles, and burns with acids. But let this pa.s.s. I now understand that replies so forced are unnatural, and of no value. Evidence so obtained is not to be trusted. Vivisection, for instance, cannot furnish unimpugnable results, for excessive shock tends of itself to make the response of a tissue abnormal. The experimental organism must therefore be subjected only to moderate stimulation. Again, one has to choose for one's experiment a favourable moment. Amongst plants, as with ourselves, there is, very early in the morning, especially after a cold night, certain sluggishness. The answers, then, are a little indistinct. In the excessive heat of midday, again, though the first few answers are very distinct, yet fatigue soon sets in. On a stormy day, the plant remains obstinately silent. Barring all these sources of aberration, however, if we choose our time wisely, we may succeed in obtaining clear answers, which persist without interruption.

It is our object, then, to gather the whole history of the plant, during every moment between its birth and its death. Through how many cycle of experience it has to pa.s.s! The effects on it of recurring light and darkness; the pull of the earth, and the blow of the storm; how complex is the concatenation of circ.u.mstances, how various are the shocks, and how multiplex are the replies which we have to a.n.a.lyse! In this vegetal life which appears so placid and so stationary, how manifold are the subtle internal reactions! Then how are we to make this invisible visible?

THE DIARY OF THE PLANT.

The little seedling we know to be growing, but the rate of its growth is far below anything we can directly perceive. How are we to magnify this so as to make it instantly measurable? What are the variations in this infinitesimal growth under external shock? what changes are induced by the action of drugs or poisons? will the action of poison change with the dose? Is it possible to counteract the effect of one by another?

Supposing that the plant does not give answers to external shock, what time elapses between the shock and the reply? Does this latent period undergo any variation with external conditions? Is it possible to make the plant itself write down this excessively minute time-interval?

Next, does the effect of the blow given outside reach the interior of the plant? If so, is there anything a.n.a.logous to the nerve of the animal? If so, again, at what rate does the nervous impulse travel the plant? By what favourable circ.u.mstances will this rate of transmission become enhanced, and by what will be r.e.t.a.r.ded or arrested? Is it possible to make the plant itself record this rate and its variations?