________________
69
SOUL external power but by a power within, which we call mind, soul, spirit or ego. The existence of this central power is disputed by none. Materialism declares this central power to be the property of matter, to be the product of molecular activities going on within the brain. This theory only explains how mechanical motions are produced in the brain cells. But machines only produce motions, not judgments. An amaeba in search of food pursues no haphazard methods but makes most careful selections of the kind it wants. It will send out its pseudopodia, catch, swallow and digest a struggling infusorium or other nutritious germ; but a mere touch of a grain of sand satisfies it as to its character, when it thrusts it from it in a way that plainly says, “That is not good.” Oxygen consuming bacteria will cluster around grains of chlorophyl, if exposed to direct sunlight, but pay no attention to them in the shade or darkness. They know when the oxygen is being given off. Infusoria guide themselves in hunting their food with apparently as much precision as fish. They avoid obstacles and sometimes undertake to move them out of the way. They reject the innutritious and take the nutritious. These facts evidently teach that the central energy called the soul power is not the result of a nervous system but vice versa. In man this fact becomes most potent. What particular motion among the molecules of the brain can be postulated as the physical equivalent and causal antecedent of our conceptions of justice, of truth, of moral obligation ? The physical brain is limited to motion only, it cannot choose its own mode of motion even. What possible motion in the brain causes the idea 'I am I'? This recognition of a real unit does not vary from the cradle to the grave. From childhood to old age, during the whole course of the total change of all brain molecules, I am l'is undisturbed. This ‘I am I' is the soul. It is this soul. which makes memory possible. It has its own consciousness and not the consciousness of any one else, therefore it is a unit existing by itself. The law of the conservation of energy is true in the physical as well as in the spiritual world. Therefore as no atom
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
