Part 13 (1/2)
”The unique throb of life in all creation could seeery before your advent, Professor! A saint I once kneould never pluck flowers 'Shall I rob the rosebush of its pride in beauty? Shall I cruelly affront its dignity by my rude divestment?'
His syh your discoveries!”
”The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches aardly Come someday to my laboratory and see the unequivocable testiraph”
Gratefully I accepted the invitation, and took my departure I heard later that the botanist had left Presidency College, and was planning a research center in Calcutta
When the Bose Institute was opened, I attended the dedicatory services Enthusiastic hundreds strolled over the premises I was charmed with the artistry and spiritual syate, I noted, was a centuried relic from a distant shrine Behind the lotus {FN8-3} fountain, a sculptured feure with a torch conveyed the Indian respect for woarden held a small teht of the divine incorporeity was suggested by absence of any altar-i]
[Illustration: JAGADIS CHANDRA BOSE, India's great physicist, botanist, and inventor of the Crescograph--see bosejpg]
Bose's speech on this great occasion ht have issued from the lips of one of the inspired ancient RIshi+S
”I dedicate today this Institute as not merely a laboratory but a temple” His reverent solemnity stole like an unseen cloak over the crowded auditoriuations I was unconsciously led into the border region of physics and physiology
To , and points of contact e Inorganicbut inert; it was athrill under the action of multitudinous forces
”A universal reaction see metal, plant and animal under a common law They all exhibited essentially the saue and depression, with possibilities of recovery and of exaltation, as well as the permanent irresponsiveness associated with death Filled with awe at this stupendous generalization, it ith great hope that I announced my results before the Royal Society--results deists present advised ations, in which my success had been assured, rather than encroach on their preserves I had unwittingly strayed into the domain of an unfamiliar caste systeical bias was also present, which confounds ignorance with faith It is often forgotten that He who surrounded us with this ever-evolving mystery of creation has also ih many years of miscomprehension, I came to know that the life of a devotee of science is inevitably filled with unending struggle It is for hiain and loss, success and failure, as one
”In ti scientific societies of the world accepted nized the importance of the Indian contribution to science {FN8-4} Can anything small or circumscribed ever satisfy thetradition, and a vital power of rejuvenescence, this land has readjusted itself through unnumbered transfor the iht for the realization of the highest ideals in life-not through passive renunciation, but through active struggle The weakling who has refused the conflict, acquiring nothing, has had nothing to renounce He alone who has striven and won can enrich the world by bestowing the fruits of his victorious experience
”The work already carried out in the Bose laboratory on the response of matter, and the unexpected revelations in plant life, have opened out very extended regions of inquiry in physics, in physiology, in y
Probleht within the sphere of experih success is not to be obtained without rigid exactitude
Hence the long battery of super-sensitive instrun, which stand before you today in their cases in the entrance hall They tell you of the protracted efforts to get behind the deceptive see into the reality that remains unseen, of the continuous toil and persistence and resourcefulness called forth to overcome human limitations All creative scientists know that the true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions they uncover the laws of truth
”The lectures given here will not be e They will announce new discoveries, deular publication of the work of the Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the whole world They will become public property No patents will ever be taken The spirit of our national culture demands that we should forever be free froain
”It is my further wish that the facilities of this Institute be available, so far as possible, to workers fro to carry on the traditions of my country So far back as twenty-five centuries, India welcomed to its ancient universities, at Nalanda and Taxila, scholars froh science is neither of the East nor of the West but rather international in its universality, yet India is specially fitted to ination, which can extort new order out of a mass of apparently contradictory facts, is held in check by the habit of concentration This restraint confers the power to hold the mind to the pursuit of truth with an infinite patience”
Tears stood inwords Is ”patience” not indeed a synony Time and the historians alike?
I visited the research center again, soon after the day of opening
The great botanist, mindful of his promise, took raph to this fern; the ed in the sa like an express train!”
My gaze was fixed eagerly on the screen which reflected the nified fern-shadow Minute life- very slowly before my fascinated eyes The scientist touched the tip of the fern with a s panto the eloquent rhythms as soon as the rod ithdrawn
”You sa any slight outside interference is detrimental to the sensitive tissues,” Bose reive an antidote”
The effect of the chlorofor The evolutionary gestures on the screen held me more raptly than a ”movie” plot My companion (here in the role of villain) thrust a sharp instruh a part of the fern; pain was indicated by spash the steitated, then stilled itself with the final punctuation of death
”By first chlorofore tree, I achieved a successful transplantation Usually, suchmaneuver ”Graphs of my delicate apparatus have proved that trees possess a circulatory system; their sap movements correspond to the blood pressure of animal bodies The ascent of sap is not explicable on the rounds ordinarily advanced, such as capillary attraction The phenoraph as the activity of living cells Peristaltic waves issue from a cylindrical tube which extends down a tree and serves as an actual heart! Thebecomes the evidence that a uniforreat scientist pointed to another Bose instrument