Many of Ludwig Feuerbach's disciples are better known to history than is their modest master. Among them figure world-famous poets, politicians, dramatists, and composers. But in 11is own day he had many a celebrator, many a vilifier. Of him his contemporary, David Strauss, wrote: "To-day, and perhaps for some time to come, the field belongs to him. His theory is the truth for this age."! Another of his contemporaries, an English divine, said that

Feuerbach ought to he annihilated. "Aye, annihilate; for this is not a matter in which we pretend to one morsel of tolerance."! This invective even extended to Feuerbach's English translator, Marian Evans, better known to literary history under her pen name, "George Eliot." Of her the same reverend gentleman says, "There is an impudicity of the mind more loathsome than any irnpudicity of the body, and Magdalene asylums may be needed for others besides the unfortunate beings who seek a refuge from guilt and misery there 1"2

Another Englishman, on the other hand, has this to say of Feuerbach: "I confess that to Feuerbach lowe a debt of inestimable gratitude. Feeling about in uncertainty for the ground, and finding everywhere shifting sands, Feuerbach cast a sudden blaze into the darkness, and disclosed to me the way."3 And the international Engels, speaking about the publication of The Essence ofChristianity, says: "One must himself have experienced the liberating effect of this book to get an idea of it. Enthusiasm was general; we all became at once Feuerbachians."4