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CHAPTER Í
13
spontaneous movement will only move when hit by a moving object--the speed and direction of motion being determined by the original impact. Besides the purposive behaviour of the living organism they possess also certain other characteteristics which are altogether absent in the inorganic world. The characteristics are birth and growth, decay and death. Every living being must be born from living parentage, must have development upto a certain stage and then decay and end in death. These characteristics were carefully noticed by the Indian thinkers who postulated a life-principle which was supposed to be present in all organic bodies capable of purposive activity. The behaviour of organic bodies as contrasted with other nonliving physical bodies was thus explained by the presence of this lise-principle which operated through the living body which is also constituted by various inorganic elements. Thus as far as the organic body is concerned, they recognised two distinct entities. The constitution of the organic body is explained by the combination of various inorganic elements, and its purposive intelligent behaviour being credited to the operative life-principle called ātmā or Soul. After recognising the duality of the nature of organic beings, the various systems of thought attempted to probe into the secrets of the nature of this life-principle called ātmā or Soul. The materialist saved himself from the trouble of metaphysical investigation by a summary disposal of the problem. For him there was no entity called Atmā which is postulated by others in order to explain this purposive intelligent nature of animal behaviour. The organic body is constituted by the inorganic elements and there is nothing more in it. Its behaviour is due to the peculiar mode of combination of the inorganic elements, and the presence of consciousness in man and some other higher animals is merely a by-product resulting from the combination of the inorganic elements constituting the organic body. The other systems rightly rejected this view as erroneous because of its inadequacy to explain satisfactorily the purposive and intelligent behaviour of animals. Hence the other systems are at one in postulating a separate entity besides the body which is constituted by inorganic elements, in order to explain
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