TOO LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



He expected experimental criticism, and was prepared for 

 it, but not one word of that had been brought forward 

 by either of his physiological critics. 



After this no one spoke, and the meeting separated, 

 with formal thanks to the author of the paper ; but further 

 trouble was in store. Sanderson from this time felt deeply 

 offended ; for his was an intricate and Gladstonian mind, 

 one of authority and influence, accustomed to be unques- 

 tioned. He was given, alike in science and in life, to 

 balancing different view-points and interests, and evolving 

 compromises accordingly ; and that a young and direct 

 mind would challenge such a courteously-worded com- 

 promise, and in such outspoken fashion, must have 

 utterly surprised and wounded him. Moreover, this direct 

 contradiction of his negative results from plants, by Bose's 

 positive ones, could not but be felt very keenly. Yet 

 Bose on his part could not be expected to accept the situa- 

 tion. His physical papers had been judged on their 

 scientific merits, and his papers had hitherto found ready 

 acceptance, his reputation for accurate work being well 

 known. But here was an opposition based on no scientific 

 grounds. He felt that as a physicist he was regarded as an 

 intruder in the domain of physiology. As an unsophisti- 

 cated man from the East, he had seriously taken the lessons 

 preached by the West about the evils of the caste 

 system ; but here he felt he had come against a yet 

 worse system of caste whose etiquette he had unwittingly 

 offended. Lord Rayleigh told him later that he him- 

 self had been subjected to ceaseless attacks from the 

 chemists, because he, a physicist, had ventured to pre- 

 dict that the air would be found to contain a new element 

 hitherto unsuspected ; yet, in spite of the protests of the 

 chemists, his prediction, as is well known, was verified by 

 the discovery of Argon. 



The paper, of which, according to custom, the proof had 

 been circulated among the members before the meeting, 

 was thus not published in the Royal Society's ' Proceedings,' 



