of religion--the human
brain. "The Gods are only the personified wishes of men," he used to
say. He brought German philosophy down from the clouds to cookery by
declaring: "Der Mensch ist, was er isst" ("Man is what he eats"). He was
a believer in what he called "Healthy sensuality," which made him the
philosopher of artists in the 'thirties and 'forties of the last
century, amongst others of Richard Wagner. The latter, however,
afterwards repented, and, by way of Schopenhauer, turned Christian.

Feuerbach came from a family that would have been the delight of Sir
Francis Galton, author of "Hereditary Genius." Feuerbach's father was a
famous jurist, who had five sons, all of whom attained the honour of
appearing in the German Encyclopaedias. The philosopher was the fourth
son. Again: the famous painter Anselm Feuerbach was his nephew, the son
of his eldest brother.

BRUNO BAUER (1809-1882). A destructive commentator of the New Testament.
He belonged to the school of "higher" criticism which has done so much
to "lower" Christianity in the eyes of savants and professors and so
little in those of mankind at large. His "Critique of the Evangelistic
History of Saint John" (1840) and his "Critique of the Evangelistic
Synoptists" (1841-42) had just been published when Heine wrote "Atta
Troll."

CANTO IX

MOSES MENDELSOHN (1729-1786). Grandfather of the famous composer. He was
a Jewish philosopher and a friend of Lessing's, who, it is supposed,
took him as his model for "Nathan the Wise." He freed his German
co-religionaries from the oppressive influence of the Talmud.

CANTO X

PROPERTY IS THEFT. A dictum of Prudhon.

CANTO XII

REIGN OF DWARFS. The approaching rule of clever little trades-people,
whose turn it will soon be if democracy progresses as at present.
Compare Nietzsche's "Zarathustra," Part III, 49, "The Bedwarfing
Virtue": "I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they have
become _smaller_, and ever become _smaller: the reason thereof is their
doctrine of happiness and virtue_."

THIS CONCLUSION. "Lo, I kiss, therefore I live"--a witty travesty of
Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum."

CANTO XIV

SO I TOOK TO HUNTING BEARS. Heine considers Atta Troll, the bear bred by
the French Revolution, as a much greater and more dangerous foe, and
therefore a worthier opponent of his than the sorry German bears--or
patriots--with whom he was forced to contend in his native country and
who incessan