キリスト教の本質 — フォイエルバッハ
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The Essence of Christianity Author : Ludwig Feuerbach Translator : George Eliot Release date : October 2, 2014 [eBook #47025] Most recently updated: October 24, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47025 Credits : Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. BY LUDWIG FEUERBACH. TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION BY MARIAN EVANS, TRANSLATOR OF “STRAUSS’S LIFE OF JESUS.” Second Edition. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., Ltd. 1890. The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. The first edition of this work was published in 1854, and, although a large one, has been long out of print. Many inquiries having been made for it since the recent lamented death of the translator, the publishers have determined to offer a second edition to the public, and have been advised to give it a place in their “English and Foreign Philosophical Library.” It is an exact reprint of the first edition, and they trust it will be received with equal favour. London , June 1881 . PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 1 The clamour excited by the present work has not surprised me, and hence it has not in the least moved me from my position. On the contrary, I have once more, in all calmness, subjected my work to the severest scrutiny, both historical and philosophical; I have, as far as possible, freed it from its defects of form, and enriched it with new developments, illustrations, and historical testimonies,—testimonies in the highest degree striking and irrefragable. Now that I have thus verified my analysis by historical proofs, it is to be hoped that readers whose eyes are not sealed will be convinced and will admit, even though reluctantly, that my work contains a faithful, correct translation of the Christian religion out of the Oriental language of imagery into plain speech. And it has no pretension to be anything more than a close translation, or, to speak literally, an empirical or historico-philosophical analysis, a solution of the enigma of the Christian religion. The general propositions which I premise in the Introduction are no à priori , excogitated propositions, no products of speculation; they have arisen out of the analysis of religion; they are only, as indeed are all the fundamental ideas of the work, generalisations from the known manifestations of human nature, and in particular of the religious consciousness,—facts converted into thoughts, i.e. , expressed in general terms, and thus made the property of the understanding. The ideas of my work are only conclusions, consequences , drawn from premisses which are not themselves mere ideas, but objective facts either actual or historical—facts which had not their place in my head simply in virtue of their ponderous existence in folio. I unconditionally repudiate absolute , immaterial, self-sufficing speculation—that speculation which draws its material from within. I differ toto cœlo from those philosophers who pluck out their eyes that they may see better; for my thought I require the senses, especially sight; I found my ideas on materials which can be appropriated only through the activity of the senses. I do not generate the object from the thought, but the thought from the object; and I hold that alone to be an object which has an existence beyond one’s own brain. I am an idealist only in the region of practical philosophy, that is, I do not regard the limits of the past and present as the limits of humanity, of the future; on the contrary, I firmly believe that many things—yes, many things—which with the short-sighted, pusillanimous practical men of to-day, pass for flights of imagination, for ideas never to be realised, for mere chimeras, will to-morrow, i.e. , in the next century,—centuries in individual life are days in the life of humanity,—exist in full reality. Briefly, the “Idea” is to me only faith in the historical future, in the triumph of truth and virtue; it has for me only a political and moral significance; for in the sphere of strictly theoretical philosophy, I attach myself, in direct opposition to the Hegelian philosophy, only to realism , to materialism in the sense above indicated. The maxim hitherto adopted by speculative philosophy: All that is mine I carry with me, the old omnia mea mecum porto , I cannot, alas! appropriate. I have many things outside myself, which I cannot convey either in my pocket or my head, but which nevertheless I look upon as belonging to me, not indeed as a mere man—a view not now in question—but as a philosopher. I am nothing but a natural philosopher in the domain of mind ; and the natural philosopher can do nothing without instruments, without material means. In this character I have written the present work, which consequently contains nothing else than the principle of a new philosophy verified practically, i.e. , in concreto , in application to a special object, but an object which has a universal significance: namely, to religion, in which this principle is exhibited, developed, and thoroughly carried out. This philosophy is essentially distinguished from the systems hitherto prevalent, in that it corresponds to the real, complete nature of man; but for that very reason it is antagonistic to minds perverted and crippled by a superhuman, i.e. , anti-human, anti-natural religion and speculation. It does not, as I have already said elsewhere, regard the pen as the only fit organ for the revelatio