A HINDU’S MIRACLES

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1926, Page 3

A HINDU’S MIRACLES

Bv MAJOR FRANCIS YKATS.BROWN. D.F.C.. in the London •■ Oaily .Mail.'”) Sir Jngadis Chandra Hose, the Hindu scientist whose researches into the ( nerves of plants have startled all - Europe, is a simple, modest, rather inaccessible man. To-day ;l, e is lecturing before the British Association at Oxford. Last week the assembled scientists at Oeueva were held spellbound by his demonstrations of the heart-heats of a mimosa. Professor Einstein said then that if only for a single one of his inventions he should have a statue erected in his honour in the capital of the League. After thirty years of work, during which the West has been inclined to j make light of his experiments as the speculations of a dreamer. Rose has proved triumphantly that his tbeones arc correct and that all life is one. liv actual experiment lie has shown that steel can feel, that plants 'ate emotions even ns you and J. and that everything created is living, struggling, dying with n spasm which is the same in kind (but not in degree) in a mimosa as it is in a man. As a single instance ot bis method 1 will take his research.es into the “ re- I flex-arc ’’ of a mimosa. He brings up j this plant under glass, screened from all shock and discomfort. To all appearance it nourishes and grows tat. , But the. pampered mimosa grows sluggish. Rose proves with mathematical preeison. that it can no longei react to stimuli from without, screened as it has been from contact with reality. He has-made an instrument that can measure its nervous tone—an instrument so sensitive that the crawl of a snail is magnified to the pace of a ' bullet. He charts his results on a « graph and proves to you in black and iLaiite that adversity is good for plants

as it is Tor human beings. These eonelusions he presents to the moralists with a smile ; they can make what they like of them. He turns to his next experiment. Bose is a mystic who records his visions to the millionth, of an inch. 1 have seen him at dinner, forgetting completely what is on his plate, while he is outlining some new and delicate experiment on the sleep, sensibility, or sexual life of plants. 1 have heard him go so deep into the problems of lifebridge such gulfs of thought with a brilliant phrase."or two—that bis bearers groped after him. amazed, disconcerted. He seems not to belong to this age but to tbe future, to a race that is to come, that shall blend the insight and burning imagination of the East to tlie cool practicality of the AA’est. Bose is all enthusiasm—a dreamer who does tilings with tbe accuracy of a watchmaker, a bard-beaded mathematical! who makes miracles happen. From h poor uuivensity professor he has become, through no particular wish of his own. an international figure. He lias renounced fortunes in patent rights. He lias neglected all the arts of success yet lie has- made so much money that he has endowed bis institute with £IOO,OOO. And. although lie gives away all the money be makes, yet more is always coming in from all ■parts of tlie world to assist his students.