Before the single-celled organisms arrived, the most successful attempt at life had been the virus. In a way, a virus has everything a life form would be thought to have. A carbon-based shell, a genome, replication, evolution - all the physical bases are covered. But something is missing - consciousness.

A virus is considered to be on the border between life and non-life. It doesn't know it's alive, and therefore it can't be, no matter what its external appearance suggests. Because there is no true life without consciousness, and consciousness can only arise in an organism capable of self-awareness. A virus is magnificent for what it is, but alas it is merely a very complicated molecule, and incapable of housing a soul.

But the creation of bacteria changed all that. While a body consisting of a single cell is very simple compared to some of the life forms that roam the Earth today, it was sufficient to allow a living organism. Bacteria could metabolize and reproduce without the need for an external host, and they're born and they die unlike a virus, which is simply assembled and exists until it's torn apart.

It was then that we learned that not all life forms allow the possibility of consciousness. Bacteria were alive, and souls could inhabit them, but since the bacteria lacked a mind, the soul couldn't guide the bacteria in any meaningful way. And so the soul could only experience life passively. It was a step in the right direction, but there was a long way to go.

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