int the principle, "I am an abstract, a merely thinking being;
the body does not belong to my essence," the new philosophy, on the other
hand, begins with the principle, "I am a real, a sensible being; the body
in its totality is my ego, my essence itself." Feuerbach, however, uses
the concept of sensibility in so wide and vague a sense that,
supported--or deceived--by the ambiguity of the word sensation, he
includes under it even the most elevated and sacred feelings. Even the
objects of art are seen, heard, and felt; even the souls of other men are
sensed. In the sensations the deepest and highest truths are concealed. Not
only the external, but the internal also, not only flesh, but spirit, not
only the thing, but the ego, not only the finite, the phenomenal, but also
the true divine essence is an object of the senses. Sensation proves the
existence of objects outside our head--there is no other proof of being
than love, than sensation in general. Everything is perceivable by the
senses, if not directly, yet indirectly, if not with the vulgar, untrained
senses, yet with the "cultivated senses," if not with the eye of the
anatomist or chemist, yet with that of the philosopher. All our ideas
spring from the senses, but their production requires communication and
converse between man and man. The higher concepts cannot be derived from
the individual Ego without a sensuously given Thou; the highest object of
sense is man; man does not reach concepts and reason in general by himself,
but only as one of two. The nature of man is contained in community alone;
only in life with others and for others does he attain his destiny and
happiness. The conscience is the ego putting itself in the place of another
who has been injured. Man with man, the unity of I and Thou, is God, and
God is love.

[Footnote 1: Feuerbach was born at Landshut, studied at Heidelberg and
Berlin, habilitated, 1828, at Erlangen, and lived, 1836-60, in the village
of Bruckberg, not far from Bayreuth, and from 1860 until his death in
Rechenberg, a suburb of Nuremberg. _Collected Works_ in 10 vols., 1846-66.
The chief works are entitled: _P. Bayle_, 1838, 2d ed., 1844; _Philosophy
and Christianity_, 1839; _The Essence of Christianity_, 1841, 4th ed., 1883
[English translation by George Eliot, 1854]; _Principles of the Philosophy
of the Future_, 1843; _The Essence of Religion_, 1845; _Theogony_, 1857;
_God, Freedom, and Immortality_, 1866. Karl Gruen, 1874, C.N