Book Title: Jain Biology
Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 120
________________ cannot be studied, because it resembles no other force in existence and is beyond man's analysis and understanding. This vital force is produced by the unique and large molecules, which are organized into living organisms. The Biologists believe that: 1. Living organisms contain a selected set of all the chemical elements present in other material systems. 2 These elements are organized in a way that is not only unusual but unique, the class 'living organisms' is a set of one. 3. They are not closed systems in equilibrium, but in a steady state of interchange with the external environment maintained by continual intake of fuel and expenditure of energy. Thus, carbon which is the most common constituent of foodstuffs, goes through the stomach and intestines into the blood and from there to a muscle where it is burnt to give energy when the muscle contracts. In a couple of hours after eating it will be breathed out as carbon dioxide. This process of self-maintenance is called homeostasis. They thus act with an aim, they show homeostasis (teleology or teleonomy). There is much evidence that bodies of all living organisms on Earth from plants, jellyfish (the simplest of animals that has a nervous system) to apes and humans, all use the same DNA code and similar amino acids. And although they know in some details what the vartious substances involved in the composition of a living cell are, NO ONE HAS YET SYNTHESIZED ALIVING CELL IN THE LABORATORY. It is admitted by them that the true living cells are much more complicated and they doubt whether they would be ever made artificially. We can emphatically say that they would never be made artificially because life is not merely a composition of MATERIAL SUBSTANCES. A non-material SOUL-SUBSTANCE is also essential to create a live cell. The soul is a substance but not a material one and this non-material/nonphysical substance is eternal; it can neither be created nor destroyed. A soul animates a particular organism and manifests itself in various vital JAIN BIOLOGY -: 105 : Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152