but all modern philosophy, has
gone through these stages; and Feuerbach is only different from other
philosophers, in having himself assisted men to reach the third and
final stage. The epoch of philosophy that was made illustrious by the
brilliant trinity of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, however far it
may have departed or emancipated itself from the traditions of
religion, not only never deposed the idea of God, but actually for the
first time made the conception of the Deity the starting-point of all
Thought and Existence. The philosophy which abolished this, whether we
consider Locke and Hume the realists, or Kant and Hegel the idealists,
is philosophy of intellect; absolute reason has taken the place of an
absolute God, criticism and dialectics the place of ontology and
theocracy. But in philosophy we find the very opposite of the
mythological legend, for in it Chronos instead of devouring his
children is devoured by them. The critical school turned against its
masters, who were already sinking into speculative theology again,
quite forgetting that its great leader had introduced a new epoch with
a struggle against ontology; and losing themselves in the heights of
non-existence, just as if they had never taken their start from the
thesis, that no created mind can comprehend the nature of the Being
that is behind all phenomena. From such heights a descent had to be
made to our earth; instead of immortal individuals, as conceived by
Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, the school of Feuerbach, Strauss, and
Bauer postulated "human beings, sound in mind and body, for whom
health is of more importance than immortality." Concentration upon
this life took the place of vague trancendentalism, and anthropology
the place of theology, ontology, and cosmology. Idealism became
bankrupt; God was regarded no longer as the creator of man, but man as
the creator of God. Humanity now took the place of the Godhead.

The new principle was now a universal or absolute one; but, as with
Hegel, universal or absolute only in words, for to sense it is
extremely real, just as Art in a certain sense is more real than the
individual. It was the "generic conception of humanity, not something
impersonal and universal but forming persons, inasmuch as only in
persons have we reality." (D. F. Strauss.)

If philosophic criticism were to go still farther than this, there
remained nothing more for it than to destroy this generalisation, and
instead of