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Soul
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which have a centralised nervous system and organs of senses of a certain degree of development”. Mere responsiveness to a stimulus is not consciousness according to him. He appears, however, to have no objection to the word, soul, standing for the powers of responsiveness. Accordingly the responsiveness in elements is due to their having souls in them,--this is the view of Haeckel, although he has objection to attributing to them consciousness “which is but a part of the higher activity of the soul” according to him.
It comes to this then that the upholders of the atomistic theory of consciousness look upon the elemental atom as “conscious” and Professor Haeckel has no objection to endowing it with a "soul" exactly for the same reason viz.: that the atom is responsive to a stimulus. Neither the atomistic theory nor the theory of Haeckel implies that an atom has the powers of reasoning or conceiving, of the power of perceiving in the way an animal or even a plant does. Does not the Jaina doctrine of the earth-bodied souls etc. suggest the same thing? If so, then, it is somewhat in a line with some of the up-to-date biological theories.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VEGETABLES AND ELEMENT-BODIED BEINGS
It is to be observed that the Jaina’s, although they credit the earth-bodied beings etc. with having souls in them, clearly and definitely maintain that those beings are not possessed of Manas. This means that these beings are not possessed of the power of thinking, reasoning recollecting, conceiving etc. They are not endowed with the sense-organs of hearing, seeing, tasting or smelling so that these beings cannot hear, see, taste, or smell. They are Ekendriya or one-sensed animals, possessed of the power of touch only. The Vanaspati-Kāya or the Vegetable also are one-sensed animals having the sense-organs of touch but the Jaina's differentiate the earth-bodied etc. from the vegetables also. The difference obviously lies in the constituents of their respective bodies. For, whereas the plasmic cells are what consti
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