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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
dravya mana and the Will cannot be shared by more than one soul in common, and without them deliberate mental action, such as man is capable of, cannot be performed. An hierarchy of conscious souls, inhabiting a single body and living in conscious subordination to one of their number, receiving and communicating information and executing orders, like a well-behaved clerical staff in an office, is not conceivable by the mind, for the foregoing reasons. If every
cell is a living being, there may be a large number of souls existing in an organism, but every cell-soul cannot be deemed to be interested in anything beyond its own little cellular ' world, and cannot be credited with intelligence that will pass out and take stock of the needs of the organism of which it is a part. The service it renders to the entire organism is not of the conscious but of the mechanical type. The ceilsouls are devoid of the organ of thought, and not capable of deliberate choice or conscious action, for that reason. Within their own little sphere of conscious manifestation they perform their functions instinctively, and are not able to think or act with deliberation.
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