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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
those in higher species entitles the former also to the possession of a Soul. Thirdly, we have seen that the vegetable organisms also exhibit in them similar actions of and reactions to external stimuli, which led Fechner and others to treat them no longer as unconscious substances but as living and conscious organisms on a line with the least developed sub-human animal. So, when the Jaina's attribute a soul to their element-bodied beings, they may be asked to state the nature of such a Soul.
Sir J. C. Bose's EXPERIMENT
Sir J. G. Bose has shown by experiment that a piece of metal can be influenced suitably and when so excited, it responds to stimuli in definite manners, just like a plant or an animal. If the matter constituting the metal be held to be a dead and inert mass, something else in the matter is certainly responsible for the action and reaction. It has also been shown by experiment that this something can be made to leave the metal when it would no longer be influenced by nor respond to the stimuli, just as in the case of a plant or an animal, when it is made to die by administration of poison. This something is in a sense super-physical, if the appellations, soul or consciousness, are not to be given to it on account of their associations with powers of developed thought, reasoning and conception. The fact is there then, that elemental matter may encase something extra-material which is excitable and responsive. The upholders of the atomistic theory of consciousness mean by consciousness' nothing but this excitability and responsiveness.
EMIL Du Bois REYMOND
Emil du Bois Reymond took Professor Haeckel to task for supporting the atomistic theory of consciousness. He said that the latter “laid it down as a metaphysical axiom that every atom has its individual consciousness”. Professor Haeckel, however, complains that he never ascribed consciousness to atoms. According to him, "true consciousness (thought and reason) is only present in those higher animals
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