Just try to understand in this way. God is the supreme father, and this material nature is the mother. The father . . . as this father injects the seed of living being within the womb of the mother, similarly, God injects the living being within this material world, and they come out under different forms with the material body. That varieties of material bodies are 8,400,000's of species. As we get according . . . yathā yoni yathā bījam. As we are getting life here according to the father's semina and mother's secretion, the body and situation . . . somebody is very highly intelligent; somebody is not so intelligent. Somebody is very rich, somebody is poor. Somebody is middle class. Somebody is animal. Somebody is tree. Somebody is insect. Somebody is aquatic. Varieties of life.
Don't think that the animals or living entities other than the human being, they have no soul. No. That's a wrong conception. They have got souls. How you can say there is no soul? The same symptoms of life there. Just like the symptoms of life means it takes birth at a certain date, then it grows, it stays, it gives some by-products, then dwindles, then vanishes. Take any. Either you take tree or you take a human body or you take an animal body, or if you take a insect body or take the demigod's body—any body you take, there is a certain date of birth, everyone, certain date of birth. And then there is a certain duration of life. Somebody lives for ten years. Somebody lives for one year. Somebody lives for six hours, five hours. There are many germs, they live for five hours, six hours, or even less than that. And there are living entities like Brahmā, whose life is millions and millions of years.
There are so many varieties of life. We have no information. There are so many universities, so many educational institutions, but they cannot say exactly how many varieties of life are there. They cannot say. Their education is not perfect. They cannot say. But we can see there are so many varieties of life, and each of them is a living entity. But if you consult Vedic literature, you'll find exactly the number. Just like in the Vedic literature you'll find jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi (Padma Purāṇa): "In the water the aquatic living beings are 900,000 different bodies." So I don't think there is any biologist or botanist who can say exactly how many forms of life are there within the water. But you'll find the information exact in number, jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi: "The aquatics, the living entities within the water, there are 900,000's of forms."