Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

JAGADISH Chandra Bose is a scientist; his field is the world of matter, his function is to discover the truth of matter by material means. The truth has to be proved by demonstration and to be established. Science denies the truth that does not come within the purview of the senses. Observation by the external senses and examination and analysis by the intellect – these are the approved and accepted instruments of knowledge for the scientist.

Scientists are rationalists; the senses and the mind or the reasoning intellect are all they hold on to. In their quest for truth they do not rely on other faculties; for other faculties fall under the categories of guess, imagination and poetry. Science demands direct knowledge of the truth; the scientist will act in accordance with the brain pure and simple; to utilise any other faculty is, for him, a frightful abuse of the scientific way. Besides, the concern of the scientist is wholly with the material world; sufficient for the discovery of the facts and principles of this domain are the five senses and the reason; there is no necessity to seek other aids.

Again, the scientist can at the same time be a poet, can have feeling, can be contemplative, can be spiritual. But that is a matter entirely for another field, another world. When the scientist is occupied with science he must shut the door on this his other aspect. A combination of the two creates confusion. Scientific research has to be carried on under the strict vigilance of the brain and the senses. If into that there intrude hopes, desires, feelings of the heart, life or imagination,

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then in place of science there will emerge romance, fiction. Eddington and Lodge, despite their being great scientists, have not escaped this fault. They have always brought in extraneous things and mixed them up with things scientific. This is the mental attitude or the viewpoint of the orthodox scientist. Perhaps ordinary lovers of science will also support it.

About science and scientists this is no doubt the prevailing canon. But in actual practice we find something else. What distinguishes Jagadish Chandra Bose is that he is a scientist, yet, while being a scientist in the true sense of the term, he is also a kavi, a poet; and this, his poetic part, is not something different from his scientific self. It not only is not separate but is the very spring and mystery, the hidden power of his scientific genius. The poet does not mean a weaver of words; the poet is one who has a divine vision and who creates by the force of that vision. By virtue of this power Jagadish Chandra often appears more like a miracle-maker than a scientist. This is not to say that Jagadish Chandra is unique and matchless in this respect. In all creative spirits even in the realm of science we find in a more or less degree an evidence of this power; for at the root of all creation this power is bound to exist. In the' brain of all discoverers from Galileo to Einstein has played the high light of a supersensuous, supra-intellectual vision. All their achievements, at any rate all the achievements of Jagadish Chandra, show how this vision has been brought down into the framework of the mind and the senses, proved and objectified.

What is it that we call a divine vision? It means an identity of feeling; we get at the truth of a thing by identifying ourselves with it. In other words, it is direct knowledge. Orthodox scientists, that is to say, those who do not create, who deal with finished articles, those who are only, or for the most part, commentators or organisers, look askance at this faculty. As already stated, they have no faith in it because they have no mastery over it, no possession of it. Theirs is

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the easy familiar path of sense-knowledge. They move from a particular to a general conclusion; from the effect to the cause; from the material to the less material; from sense-proof to suprasensuous proof; or, as in mathematics, to inference. Diametrically opposite is the course of direct knowledge. Here the knower does not separate the subject from himself and place it before him, does not break up its physical form for an analysis of and research into its properties and actions; at the very outset, the knower gets unified with the object to be known, his consciousness infuses itself into its being; in a sense, he becomes the object itself, just as Sri Radha felt that through constant remembrance of Sri Krishna she had become Sri Krishna himself. In this state the truth, the mystery, the properties and functions of the object transmit themselves to the consciousness of the knower and become clear to it as daylight. This direct knowledge of an object from inside, through no external medium of proof, if correctly attained, is infallible and above doubt, and has the rhythm of its unity and completeness.

It is not that Jagadish Chandra seized the truth by dint of his sharp intellect and keen observation through the senses, however much he might have possessed these two faculties. With his field of investigation, particularly with the plant world, he established an identity, a unity of consciousness with its being; and, as. a result of that, the truth and nature of that world reflected themselves in his mind. But then his achievement – perhaps this is what is called a purely scientific achievement – is that he has tested these truths attained by an inner knowledge, verified them, arranged them clearly in proper order, and proved their genuineness by practical demonstration by means of the physical mind and intellect, through the medium of the senses, with the help of material instruments. In this latter respect too – in the invention and employment of the physical instruments and processes – he has shown a strange skill and simplicity, a magic, that too

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has been possible by that very intuitive insight.

The speciality and distinctiveness of the truth and knowledge of the object that Jagadish Chandra has found without the accepted means and processes of knowledge arises from a speciality of that very direct insight and of that divine vision, the fundamental truth of which is oneness. All matter is one – even to a scientist this truth is not new – but then the unity and oneness that has attained such intensity and perfection in these days was not a familiar fact of the olden times. Jagadish Chandra has traced a new line of unity in the unity of matter; he has raised the unity of matter to a higher level and invested it with a new quality. Over and above the unity of matter in the world there is a unity of life; behind the rhythms of matter is the rhythm of life. Even mineral objects feel fatigued, they faint from the application of poison, they look dying, then die. Plants also are no mere sum of material elements; they too have pulsation and nervous response, vibration of the heart and feeling of joy and sorrow, they have an involved consciousness. Jagadish Chandra has in this way brought matter through the corridor of life right almost to the door-step of consciousness. Our ancient seer vision has thus been made sensible through in his genius.

All that we see is one, not many. That one is not inanimate matter, it is instinct with life, it is living, nay, not only living but conscious. The truth that the Rishi in his divine vision has seen, and experienced in his soul, how it manifests itself, how it proves itself, how the rhythm of the subtle has played into the gross, how the Self of the Spirit has not concealed itself outside or beyond its creation but has permeated the whole of creation, how its light has made the creation luminous – tasya bhasa sarvamidam bibhati – "his light illumines all this" – something of this knowledge Jagadish Chandra has placed before the physical eye of our ordinary belief.

Thus do we find in Jagadish Chandra the message of a

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large and profound synthesis, harmony and unity: on one side the hoary East, on the other the modern West; on one side the suprasensuous, on the other the senses; on one side Spirit, on the other Matter – Jagadish Chandra acts as a bridge between this twofold truth.

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