If life begins where the separate organs begin then we must hold all Haeckel's protozoa (Protistenreich) and probably many others as dead; all organisms at least up to those composed of one cell and those included are not capable of life. If the means of circulation of matter through different channels is the distinguishing mark of life we must place outside of this definition all the upper classes of the colenterata entirely, with the exception of the medusae, and therefore all the polypi and other plant animals are also to be considered as being outside the class of living creatures. And if the circulation of matter through different canals from an inner point is the distinguishing characteristic of life we must reckon all animals as dead which either have no heart or several hearts. Besides these there belong also to this category all worms, starfish and ringed creatures (annuloids and annulous according to Huxley's definition) a portion of the shell fish, crabs, and finally a vertebrate animal, the lancelet (amphioxus) and all plants. When Herr Duehring therefore undertakes to distinguish life narrowly and strictly, he gives four mutually contradictory modes of distinguishing life, one of which condemns not only the whole of plant life but about half the animal kingdom to eternal death. No one can accuse him of having deceived us when he promised us peculiar results based on individual ideas. In another place he says "There is a simple fundamental type in nature belonging to all organisms from the lowest to the highest" and this type is to be met "in the subordinate movements of the most undeveloped plants." This is again an absolutely false statement. The simplest type in the whole of organic nature is the cell, and it lies universally at the foundation of the highest organisms. On the other hand there is a substance among the lowest organisms lower even than the cell, the protomoeba, a single piece of undifferentiated protoplasm, without any differentiation, a complete series of monads and the entire class of siphoneae. All of these are connected with the higher organisms only by virtue of the fact that protoplasm is its substantial foundation, and that they fulfill the functions of protoplasm, that is they live and die. Further Herr Duehring tells us "physiologically the concept of existence consists in this, that it embraces a single nerve apparatus. Sensation is therefore the characteristic of all animal organisms that is the capacity of conscious subjective recognition of circumstances. The sharp line of differentiation between plants and animals consists in the leap to sensation. This distinguishing line cannot any more be abolished by known forms of transition than it can be brought into existence by the logical necessity of externally distinguishable characteristics." And further "Plants are totally and eternally without sensation and are devoid of the faculty for it."