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such as, nigodas, earth quadrates, etc., i.e. bacteria, are also incapable of originating from non-living material by spontaneous generation. It seems clear that nigodas require the presence of pre-existing nigodas,20 just as the virus of modern Biology does so. Nigodas (micro-organisms) do not arise de nove from non-nigodas, just as viruses do not do so from non-viral material.21
Elements of the idea that all of the many kinds of plants and animals existing at the present time were not created de novo and were eternally exsiting and have descended from previously existing organisms are clearly expressed in the jaina texts,22 but they have their gradations.23 The theory of organic evolution that all of the many kinds of plants and animals “have descended from previously existing simpler organisms by graduals modifications which have accumulated in successive generations has gained ground among the modern Biologists as one of the great unifying concepts of Biology. Elements of this were implicit in the writings of certain Greek philosophers before the Christian era, from Thales to Aristotle.”24
The Jaina studies of the development of many kinds of animals and plants from ferilized egg25 or embryo26 to adult leads to the generalization that organisms tend to repeat in the course of their embryonic development, some of the corresponding stages of their evolutionary ancestors. According to the theory of recapitulation, embryos recapitulate some of this embryonic forms of their ancestors, 27 while modern Biology goes a step forward and states that "the human being, at successive stages in development resembles in certain respects a fish embryo, then an amphibian embryo, then a reptilian embryo and so on.” 28 Inter-relations of Organism and Environment :
A careful study of communities of plants and animals
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