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it possesses consciousness, for to be conscious means simply to know, the word "conscious" being from the Latin conscious, from con and scire to know. The amoeba was conscious, because it knew of the presence of its prey, and it had volition because it willed to grasp that prey. It acted then with conscious volition and in this way it projected the organs which it afterwards developed.

But as its desires grew apace it dropped the control of the first established activities, because it could do so by virtue of the mechanical law. If you set a ball rolling it is carried forward by the momentum given by your hand, which is the agent of you conscious volition, and the ball rolls on until the force transmitted is spent. By the same law the mechanical action which was set up at first in the body by the conscious volition continues until the force imparted to it is exhausted.

In this way our bodies are running as the result of an action set up long ago. As we go from childhood to old age we get farther and farther from the original impelling force until finally the mechanism runs down, just as a clock would with no hand to wind it.

But just so surely as a clock can renew its action just so surely can the human body do the same and escape that cessation of activity which we know as death.