The following is a substance of the Address delivered in Bengali by
Prof. J. C. Bose, on the 14th April 1911, as the President of the Bengal
Literary Conference, which met in the Easter of 1911 at Mymensing.
In this Literary Congress it would appear that you have interpreted
Letters in no exclusive sense. We are not met to discuss the place that
literature is to hold in the gospel of beauty. Rather are we set upon
conceiving of her in larger ways. To us to-day literature is no mere
ornament, no mere amusement. Instead of this, we desire to bring beneath
her shadow all the highest efforts of our minds. In this great communion
of learning, this is not the first time that a scientific man has
officiated as priest. The chair which I now occupy has already been held
by one whom I love and honour as friend and colleague, and glory in our
countryman, Praphulla Chandra Ray. In honouring him, your Society has
not only done homage to merit, but has also placed before our people a
lofty and inclusive ideal of literature.
You are aware that in this West, the prevailing tendency at the moment
is, after a period of synthesis, to return upon the excessive
sub-division of learning. The result of this specialisation is rather to
accentuate the distinctiveness of the various sciences, so that for a
while the great unity of all tends perhaps to be obscured. Such a caste
system in scholarship, undoubtedly helps at first, in the gathering and
classification of new material. But if followed too exclusively, it ends
by limiting the comprehensiveness of truth. The search is endless.
Realisation evades us.
The Eastern aim has been rather the opposite, namely, that in the
multiplicity of phenomena, we should never miss their underlying unity.
After generations of this quest, the idea of unity comes to us almost
spontaneously, and we apprehend no insuperable obstacle in grasping it.
I feel that here in this Literary Congress, this characteristic idea of
unity has worked unconsciously. We have never thought of narrowing the
bounds of literature by a jealous definition of its limits. On the
contrary, we have allowed its empire to extend. And you have felt that
this could be adequately done only, if in one place you could gather
together all that we are seeking, all that we are thinking, all that we
are examining. And for this you have to-day invited those who sing along
with those who meditate, and those who experiment. And this is why,
though my own life has been given to the pursuit of science, I had yet
no hesitation in accepting the honour of your invitation.