NA TURE 



177 



THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1916. 



ANCIENT HINDU SCIENCE. 

 The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus. By 

 Dr. B, Seal. Pp. viii -i- 295. (London : Long- 

 mans, Green and Co., 1915.J Price 125. 6d. net. 

 A CHARACTERISTIC feature of the preseat- 

 ^ day literary activity of the philosophically 

 ninded men of science in India is seen in the com- 

 nentaries they are publishing from time to time 

 n their ancient systems of scientific doctrine, 

 artly, no doubt, with the object of enlightening 

 iVestern nations concerning the existence in these 

 vstems of certain root-ideas which are usually 

 eld by us to be the product of Western thought 

 lone. The more our knowledge grows the more 

 isrtainly will it be seen that many of these funda- 

 lental concepts are common to all systems of 

 hilosophy, and that, in the absence of an accurate 

 iironology, it becomes increasingly difficult to 

 itermine where or with whom their germs ori- 

 jnated. It is possible, of course, that some of 

 t.ese fundamental ideas were independently con- 

 iuved, but it is equally probable that they may 

 live had a common origin or have been radiated 

 <Dm a common source. In such case there is 

 iound for the supposition that this common 

 ^urce was India. But in reality it is impossible 

 t say with any approach to accuracy how Eastern 

 "ft.owledge travelled in the far-off times to which 

 V- are referring. We can only surmise that these 

 ?^C!ent philosophies found their way along trade 

 ' s through Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, to the 

 ks and Egyptians, and thence along the Medi- 

 liranean littoral into Spain and western Europe. 

 |In the book before us Dr. Brajendranath Seal 

 li.kes no exaggerated claim to the antiquity of the 

 b(iy of knowledge with which he deals. Indeed, 

 hj says in the present state of Indian chronology 

 »t(is impossible to assign dates to the original 

 soirees from which his materials have been drawn. 

 "^ ctically, he .thinks it may be assigned to the 

 nnium 500 B.C. to 500 a. d., which is compara- 

 V late in the history of human thought. With 

 'Ct to the West all he definitely asserts is that 

 Hindus had, if not a prior claim, at least an 

 pendent share with the Greeks in the work of 

 tructing scientific concepts and methods in the 

 >tigation of physical phenomena. Indeed, it is 

 >able that they were earlier than the Greeks in 

 mulating a body of knowledge capable of 

 ;:: applied to industrial technique. It is at least 

 ain that Hindu scientific ideas deeply influenced 

 ourse of natural philosophy in Asia — in China 

 Japan towards the east and in the Saracen 

 ire in the west. 



he book under review consists of a series of 

 ographs on the positive sciences of the ancient 

 Jus. Some portion of it has alreadv appeared 

 'r. P. C. Ray's "Hindu Chemistry," viz., the 

 iters dealing with the mechanical, physical, 

 chemical theories of the ancient Hindus and 

 their scientific methods. The author regards 

 )Ook as preliminary to a more comprehensive 

 I NO. 2426, VOL. 97] 



work on comparative philosophy, since philosophy 

 in its rise and development is necessarily governed 

 by the body of positive knowledge preceding or 

 accompanying it. Hindu philosophy, he considers, 

 on its empirical side was dominated by concepts 

 derived from physiolc^y and philology, whereas 

 Greek philosophy was dominated by geometrical 

 concepts and methods. The ultimate object of 

 his labours, apparently, is to attempt a compara- 

 tive estimate of Greek and Hindu science, with, it 

 is hoped, a measure of success and some approach 

 to finality. 



Dr. Ray's work on "Hindu Chemistry" has 

 already been the subject of notice in these columns. 

 On the present occasion, therefore, we purpose 

 to restrict ourselves to an examination of the chap- 

 ters dealing with Hindu ideas on kinetics and 

 acoustics; on plants and plant-life; on the classi- 

 fication of animals; and on Hindu physiology and 

 biology. 



To begin with, a Western student of the book 

 meets with an initial difficulty in the different 

 systems of transliteration adopted by the two con- 

 tributors. It is to be hoped, in the interests of 

 uniformity, that if Western literature continues to 

 be augmented by Eastern contributions of this 

 character some understanding on this matter may 

 be arrived at. It is difficult enough as it is for 

 the Western mind to assimilate Eastern thought, 

 or to appreciate its subtle nuances, without the 

 difficulty being unreasonably increased by a matter 

 which is surely capable of satisfactory settlement 

 by philologists. A more serious difficulty consists 

 in the employment by the author of terms like 

 "isomeric," "polymeric," etc., which are essentially 

 modern, and used by us in a perfectly definite 

 sense to express modern ideas, but which in the 

 book are adopted to connote conditions which are 

 I only very remotely analogous. Dr. Brajendranath 

 i Seal is well aware of what he admits is a question- 

 ! able freedom. It would be difficult in all cases to 

 ; suggest an alternative, but it must be admitted 

 ; that the loose use of well-defined modern terms to 

 i express vague or only very distantly related ideas 

 i does not conduce to accurate thinking. 

 I The chapter on mechanics deals with ancient 

 j Hindu ideas of the analysis of motion ; of motion 

 ! considered in relation to its causes ; of motion not 

 i due to material contact of which the mechanical 

 I causes are unknown, and which are to be ascribed 

 1 to the universal final cause (Adrista), e.g., the first 

 I motion of primordial atoms, the upward motion 

 I of gaseous particles, the movement of iron towards 

 j the magnet, capillary motion as of liquid particles 

 I from the root to the stem of a plant, etc. The idea 

 ] attached to the hypothesis of Adrista (which 

 j simply means " unseen ") seems to have been modi- 

 I fied in the course of time. Originally it would 

 j appear to have been used as an expression for 

 j agnosticism, no transcendental interpretation 

 ! being attached to it. The chapter next treats of 

 force ; the causes of pressure, and of impact ; 

 j gravity ; curvilinear, vibratory, and rotatory 

 j motion ; fluidity and the motion of fluids ; measure- 

 j ment of motion ; units of time and space ; relative 

 i and serial motion. The author shows no inclina- 



