Sree Krishna, the Lord of Love

by Baba Premananda Bharati

SECTION XIV. MODERN SCIENTIFIC TESTIMONY.

A recent discovery of modern science has not only thrown the clearest light upon this Hindoo doctrine of the unity and composition of the universe, but has fully proved its correctness. This is the first indirect investigation of Western material science into the realm of the subjective side of creation. The author of this discovery, by strange irony of Fate, is a Hindoo, though educated and trained in scientific knowledge in England, under English teachers of Science. He is now a scientific celebrity among Western scientific celebrities of the day; and if the work of his tested discovery be rightly estimated, he ought to be classed with the highest of them all. His name is Professor Jagadis Chunder Bose, D. Sc., Professor of Science in the Calcutta University.

Prof. Bose's discovery, now embodied in book-form and entitled "Response in the Living and the Non-Living," marks a new epoch in the advancement of modern science. It has been accepted by all scientific authorities, after the Professor had demonstrated it by experiments before a large number of scientific people in London, and notably by Lord Kelvin.

Armed with the demonstrated facts of this discovery. Professor Bose maintains that the true test of the existence of life in any form of matter is its sensitiveness to external stimulus. According to this test he proves conclusively that no essential difference exists between animals and metals or vegetables. He has shown by scientific experiments that a bar of iron is not only as irritable and sensitive as a human body, but that it can be killed or poisoned in the same way as a human body can be killed or poisoned. According to his discovery, life pervades every object and part of Nature; and only some of these parts or objects can be said to be in a dead state, which means they can be deprived of their sensitiveness to external stimulus.

If any part of our body is pinched, the nerve which connects that part with the brain, running all along, sends an electric current to the brain, vibrating under the pinch. The brain alone feels the pain inflicted upon any part of our body, says modern science; and it is proved by the fact that no pain is felt by us if our brain is deadened by chloroform.

The galvanometer is a well-known and very delicate scientific instrument for detecting the presence of electric currents; it has a needle on a pivot, and the faintest electric current will cause a deflection of this needle. If at any intervening part of the electric current-bearing nerve in the human body the galvanometer be attached, and the end of the nerve pinched or otherwise irritated, then immediately the needle of the galvanometer will deflect, thus showing that the irritation of the nerve causes a current like that of electricity to be sent along it. This fact is now very well known to scientists, and Prof. Bose's investigations are based upon this well-known scientific fact.

With a view to ascertaining whether or not matter which has hitherto been known as non-living could be proved so under the test of the galvanometer, the Professor attached the instrument to bars of different metals, with startling contrary results. The Professor found that all metals show visible signs of sensitiveness when twisted or tapped. The greater the irritation the greater the visible signs of sensitiveness; even every single peculiarity in the irritability of animal matter is exactly reproduced in the case of metal. As, for instance, when the sensitiveness of a muscle or a nerve of an animal wears off after a time, under repeated irritation, it begins to show signs of fatigue, the deflection of the needle of the galvanometer becoming more and more feeble; the Professor found that metals would betray exactly the same signs of fatigue under repeated irritation. Again, after a short rest, the signs of fatigue were found to disappear in animal muscle and in metal alike, their sensitiveness being fully restored. This last fact is known to many of us who constantly use a razor and find it losing its keen edge and growing duller and duller, despite vigorous stropping, and spontaneously recovering its original keenness by being laid aside for a few days.

Professor Bose's process of registering the deflections of the needle of the galvanometer is this: By a mechanical device the point of the needle is photographed on paper, which is moved along at a constant rate, the needle's point tracing out a series of zig-zag lines on the paper, when the needle is oscillated by an electric current. The width of the zig-zags corresponds to the amount of the deflection of the needle, therefore the strength of the electric current. If there be no current, and consequently no deflection of the needle, its point will remain stationary and merely trace a straight line on the moving paper.

This book of Prof. Bose's, "Response in the Living and the Non-Living," is full of still more wonderful revelations. He has found and shown, to the satisfaction of European scientists through experiments, that metals do not only go to sleep, but can be poisoned and killed like human beings and animals. Like an unused animal muscle showing signs of sluggishness and appearing to be in a kind of torpor, then gradually seeming to waken up under irritation, and finally returning to full activity, Professor Bose proves that metals behave in exactly the same way and process of gradation. He also proves that the effects of extreme cold and extreme heat produce exactly similar conditions in both animals and metals.

But men or animals can be drugged and made drunk. Can metals likewise be drugged and made drunk? Yes, says Prof. Bose, and he proves it absolutely. He proves that metals show the same increase of irritability under the influence of stimulants and narcotics as the human body. Moreover, even as different animals are affected differently by the same dose of a stimulant, so also are different metals. Under the influence of carbonate of sodium, irritability of platinum is increased threefold, while the irritability of tin is less.

Still more significant is the action of anaesthetics and narcotics. Under their action the sensitiveness of metals can be reduced to any desired degree, exactly as is the case of human beings. A more striking parallel between animal matter and metals is established by Prof. Bose. The action of some narcotics on the human frame is known to be paradoxical under certain conditions. While a large dose of opium, for instance, decreases the sensitiveness of the human body, a very minute dose has exactly the opposite effect, that is to say, acts as a stimulant. This anomaly has been found by Prof. Bose to have a parallel in metals, tin being found to show that its sensitiveness is increased half as much again by being treated with a minute dose of potash (3 parts in 100), but the sensitiveness begins to decrease when the dose is increased.

Now the question suggests itself that if metals are as much alive as animals, then they must also be as liable to die as animals. Prof. Bose has found this to be a fact, too. Metals not only die; but they can be poisoned and revived, and poisoned and killed.

In order to find out these facts, Prof. Bose took a piece of metal which showed full vigor of sensitiveness and so was considered healthy, and treated it with a moderate dose of oxalic acid, which is a powerful poison. The needle of the galvanometer instantly indicated a spasmodic flutter; the sensitiveness of the metal more and more feeble, till it seemed almost to die away. At this stage, a powerful antidote being applied, slowly and gradually the sensitiveness began to revive, and in time became as active as when the metal was not poisoned. The treatment of another piece of healthy metal with a strong dose of the same poison resulted in violent spasms, with rapid enfeeblement of sensitiveness, which soon vanished altogether. After a proper interval the antidote was tried in vain; the piece of metal was killed forever. The results of experiments with different metals and different poisons were the same; but all poisons not being alike in their action upon animal matter, the same is true of their action on metal, absolutely and undoubtedly. In some cases, however, after all traces of poison had been removed by the counteracting influence of stimulating acids, the poisoned metal was eventually reanimated; which meant that the metal was not really killed, but was merely in a state of suspended animation. The most striking feature of the discovery in this connection is, that the very poison which kills both animal and metal is itself endowed with life, which shows itself by indications of irritability and sensitiveness, and which can itself be killed.

Here is another significant point in regard to the operation of poison on both an animal and a metal. In the case of an animal the operation is twofold; first, the actual death process, lasting from a few minutes to several hours; secondly, the purely nervous effect which manifests itself in the form of spasms, paralysis or other symptoms, and which is developed much sooner, sometimes instantaneously. Prof. Bose has discovered the same phenomenon in metal. Under the effect of some powerful poisons there was instantaneous spasm shooting through the metal long before the corrosive action of the acid could penetrate beyond the surface.

Professor Bose has proved in his book that all these phenomena with every single variation exist as much in the vegetable kingdom as in the animal and mineral. Indeed, the three kingdoms of matter, the animal, the vegetable and the mineral, are, says the Professor, but one in essence and the physiological distinction between so-called organic and inorganic matter, of which man and metal are but types, is based upon a false and unscientific assumption. Prof. Bose dedicates his book to his countrymen, the Hindoos, because, he says, his discovery is a discovery made millions of years ago by the Hindoo sages, who proclaimed the unity of the universe in essence and construction, as well as in the laws that govern it.