14 AUGUST 1920, Page 26

The Life and Work of Sir Jagculis C. Bose, F.R.S.

By Patrick Geddes. (Longmans. 16a. net.)—Professor Geddes has written a very Interesting account of the life and work of the only scientific man of the first rank whom India has produced in modern times. The biographical portions of the book are evidently based on a close acquaintance with their subject. These chapters do but confirm the view which we printed more than twenty years ago as to the advantages which might be -conferred on science by a man with " the Sanyasi mind, the mind which utterly controls the body and can meditate and inquire endlessly while life remains, never for a moment losing sight of the object, never for a moment letting it be obscured by any terrestrial temptation." This " prince of experimenters " (as Professor Arthur Thomson once called him) had to contend with many needless difficulties in the course of his life work— due, we fear, in too great part to departmental and racial jealousies—and the unselfish way in which he overcame these difficulties should be a model to Western men of science. The worthy culmination of his laborious career was the opening, in 1917, of the Bose Institute for Research at Calcutta, and we are glad to think that the evening of this truly distinguished Indian's days will be spent in watching the triumph of the ideals which have always guided his footsteps.