to ensure the accurate replication of certain species for millions of years?
5.71 At what point in creation then,
did consciousness creep into living organisms?
And how did intelligent thought which weighs and decides
come into the field of unconscious inanimate matter?
5.71.1 Without inherent consciousness, how can so much informed
and informing activity take place in a cell invisible to the living eye?
Is not such activity the product of Consciousness/awareness,
proving the presence of
5.72 Furthermore, a single living cell, in the form of a bacterium,
can move about on its own and live its own specialised,
frequently exciting life within the environment
– or – as a virus doing its deadly specialized work
of attacking specific targets within living organisms.
5.73 Alternatively, the cell may be fixed within an organism,
carrying out its own highly important work of construction
and maintenance of some part of the organism.
5.73.1 Such work produces living material exactly suited – and necessary –
to the living organ on which it works – be it parts of the human body
or of animal life, or plant – such as human toes and spleen,
or animal fur and tusks, or fish scales and feathers of birds,
or bark of tree and foliage on branches, or petals and stalk of flowers,
or antennae of butterflies and their gauzy wings, the reptilian
skin of crocodiles and their teeth, the eyes of squid and
their skins which change colour according to need of camouflage.
5.73.2 Each of these completely diverse and seemingly unrelated
physical phenomena are created by the individual, specialised work
of billions and billions and billions of identical living cells.
5.74 On contemplating the magnitude and diversity of the work
accomplished by a simple living cell invisible to the naked eye
– can you believe in a mechanistic universe?
was illogical, offering no plausible purpose behind or reason for its existence
– devoid of personal consciousness.
But this is not so.
5.74.2 These Identical living cells work together in harmony within man or beast,
to make liver with its multiple duties within a body,
to create an intricate eye having its own specific purposes of putting
the entity into direct and intelligent touch with its environment,
incorporating the assistance of the brain, or strong bones,
expressly and intricately designed in conjunction with tendons and muscles,
to unite with others in such convenient ways as to enable
full and supple movement of the entity.