Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

150th Birth Year
Tribute
with which the message
is being sent along the conducting path of the
plant. It has to record its living pulsation and the
stupor that comes under the action of narcotics
and signal the exact moment of death under the
action of poisons.
I said that the slur against Indian competence
in science has chiefly lain in regard to lack
of the experimental skill and the power of invention
and construction of apparatus of extreme
delicacy. To this the sufficient answer is that the
instruments just described have all been devised
in India and constructed by Indian mechanicians.
Their great perfection and extreme delicacy may
be gauged from the fact that, though these instruments
have been widely exhibited in all the
scientific centers of the West, and though
America boasts the possession of the greatest
mechanicians of the world, yet even in America
they found it impossible to repeat these instruments.
And requests have in consequence been
made by the different Universities in Europe and
America, for the supply of instruments from my
Laboratory, these being regarded of essential
importance for furthering the new investigations
relating to life.
It will thus be seen that when we put our
whole strength into the accomplishment of any
object, all difficulties vanish and the impossible
becomes possible. But this cannot be the outcome
of easy complacency. For twelve years a
single man had to bear the brunt of opposition
from the whole scientific world and after years
of drudgery and many failures success came to
me at last.
Fact and Imagination
When tired with the drudgery of experimental
verification, nothing appears more tempt-
10
ing than giving free rein, once in a way, to imagination
and create a world full of wonder. I indulged
in this weakness twenty years ago and
wrote curiously enough, an imaginary history of
the hidden life of the plant. Of the many wonderful
things said it is not at all surprising that
some did come out true; but the rest of the speculation
was quite wrong. It is not the likelihood
of something coming out right that is of the least
importance in science. For nothing is so subversive
to the progress of science as the various
contending speculations without basic facts to
support them. What really counts is the absolute
certainty of demonstrated fact which is true for
all time; and on this sure foundation alone can
great superstructure be raise. How necessary it
is to observe extreme caution against being misled
by speculation will be obvious when we realize
that we may be led astray be appearances,
which we accept as well-ascertained fact. All of
us, for instance, have regarded Mimosa as delicately
sensitive, shrinking from touch, while most
of the ordinary plants are supposed to be devoid
of all sensibility. My investigations show that
the so-called sensitive plants are really paralysed,
this motoparalysis being confined to one
side; while some of the so-called insensitive plants
are far more sensitive than the much-vaunted
Mimosa. Again who has not been struck by the
closing of the leaflets of certain plants at the onset
of darkness, this being unhesitatingly regarded
as the sleep of plants? In reality, closure of leaflets
has nothing whatever to do with true sleep;
my investigations show that plants, generally
peaking, do not go to sleep in the evening, but
keep wide awake nearly all night long and fall
asleep only about six in the morning! This will
show how necessary it is, for the discovery of
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna