124 FEUERBACH most distinctive traits, but here as elsewhere he deals with the problem solely from the psychological side. Hence he can neither be classed with materialists nor immaterialists ; and, with all his frank honesty and uncompromising energy of language, the same duality of attitude characterizes his position throughout. He is from one point of view irreligious, from another deeply religious, logical and mystical, positive and speculative, academically cultured and a man of the people. Feuerbach s personal character was highly estimable, fully conformed to the philosophic ideal in simplicity, independence, disinterestedness, and fidelity to conviction. His erudition is extensive and accurate. He possessed no brilliant or superficially attractive qualities ; his manner was shy and embarrassed, and his literary composition tardy and laborious. His style, nevertheless, is sufficiently clear and even epigrammatic to make him a popular writer in his own country, but hardly in any other. His chief work, though translated by the first of living English prose writers, produced little impression in England. Out of Germany he will be most esteemed by those who have attained his results by other processes, and most memorable as an instance of the empirical spirit of modern physical science asserting itself in the region of abstract speculation, with little assistance from scientific study. Feuerbach s Essence of Christianity has been translated into the principal European languages ; the English version is by George Eliot. His correspondence has been edited, with a confused and imperfect biography, by Karl Griin (Leipsic, 1874). (R. G. ) FEUERBACH, PAUL JOHANN ANSELM VON (1775- 1833), a distinguished writer on criminal law, was born at Jena, November 14, 1775. In his infancy the family removed to Frankfort, and he received his early education at the gymnasium of that town. At the age of seventeen, he went to the university of Jena ; and, his path in life not yet being fixed, his active mind eagerly sought after knowledge in all fields. He familiarized himself with the Greek and Roman classics, especially with the poets ; and when the common need compelled him to work for bread as well as for knowledge, his choice fell, under the influence of Reinhold s teaching, on divine philosophy. Limiting his worldly wants to the utmost, he devoted himself heart and soul to the research of truth in its higher fields, and at twenty he had already made his mark as a powerful thinker by various philosophical essays. The influence of these early studies is apparent in the great works on which his special reputation rests. But his attention was soon concentrated on the subject to which his life was to be devoted, the science of legislation. He now sat at the feet of Schaubert and Hufeland, and the study of natural law and of jurisprudence excited in him a genuine enthusiasm. The early essays of his student years bore the impress of one of those mighty minds by which beneficent revolutions are wrought, and which open new paths to the race. In 1795 he obtained his degree of doctor in philosophy; and published one of his firstlings, as he calls it, an essay on the only possible arguments against the existence and the value of natural law. The same year he married. In 1796 he published a Critique of Natural Laiv as prepara tion (Prop&deutik) for a Science of Natural Law. This was followed in 1798, by his Anti-Hobbes, a dissertation on the limits of the civil power, and the right of resistance on the part of subjects against their rulers, and his Untersuchunyen uberdas Verbrechen des Hochverraths. In 1799 he obtained his degree of doctor of laws, and received permission to deliver a course of academical lectures. These attracted many hearers, and soon won for him the rank of a master in his science. At the same time appeared an important work, which established his reputation, the Revision der (irundsatze und Grundbegriffe des peinlichen Rechts. In this treatise he first set forth his new theory of punishment, the intimidation theory, which was further developed and applied in the BibliotheJc fur die peinliche Rechtsuissen- schaff, a work produced by Feucrbach in conjunction with Grolman and Von Almendingen, and published in 1800- 1801, and was systematically and thoroughly expounded in his famous Lehrbuch des gemeint-n in Deutschland geltenden peinlichen Rechtx (1801), of which the fourteenth edition appeared in 1847. In these works Feuerbach shows him self not only a great thinker and discoverer of truth, but also a gifted teacher and luminous expositor, capable of giving to principles a scientific form, and investing them with the grace and elegance of the highest literary art. His works were a powerful protest against vindictive punishments, and contributed largely to the subsequent humane reformation of criminal laws. Nor was the ex ample of his style without influence on later writers on law. In 1801 Feuerbach was appointed professor at the univer sity of Jena ; but many offers were made to him, and in the following year he accepted a chair at Kiel. This he held for two years, lecturing on the law of nature, criminal law, the institutes, the pandects, and hermeneutics. But, disappointed at not finding so numerous, sympathizing, or promising an audience as he had expected, he removed in 1804 to the university of Landshut. He was also named aulic councillor, and was commanded by the king, Maxi milian Joseph, to draw up a project of penal law for Bavaria. His position, however, was rendered painful and annoying by the jealousies and dislike of some of his fellow pro fessors, who instigated the students to burlesque and ridicule him, and he resigned his chair. He was then called to Munich with the rank of privy referendary in the department of justice, and in 1808 was created privy councillor. Meanwhile appeared his Critique on Klein- schrod s project of criminal law (1804); and the practical reform of penal legislation in Bavaria was begun under his influence in 1806 by the abolition of torture. In 1808 appeared the first volume of his MerJcwiirdige Criminal- fiille, completed in 1811 a work of deep interest for its application of psychological considerations to cases of crime, and intended to illustrate the inevitable imperfec tion of human laws in their application to individuals. In his Betrachtungen uber das Geschworenengericht (1812) Feuerbach declared against trial by jury, maintaining that the verdict of a jury was not adequate legal proof of a crime. Much controversy was aroused on the subject, and the author s view was subsequently to some extent modified. His labours on the penal law being completed, the project was submitted to rigorous examination, and, receiving ultimately the royal sanction, was promulgated in 1813 as the Bavarian penal code. The influence of this code, the embodiment in logical form of Feuerbach s enlightened and humane views, was immense. It was at once adopted as the model and basis for new codes for Wurtemberg and Saxe- Weimar ; it was adopted in its entirety in the grand-duchy of Oldenburg ; and it was translated into Swedish by order of the king. Several of the Swiss cantons reformed their codes in con formity with it. Feuerbach had also undertaken to prepare a civil code for Bavaria, to be founded on the Code Napoleon. This was afterwards set aside, and the Codex Maximilianus adopted as a basis. But the project did not become law. During the war of liberation (1813-1814) Feuerbach showed himself an ardent patriot, and published several political brochures, which, from the writer s position, had almost the weight of state manifestoes. One of these is entitled Ueber Deutsche Freiheit und Vertretung Deutscher Volker durch Landstdnde (1814). In 1814 Feuerbach was appointed second president of the court of appeal at Bamberg, and three years later he became first president of
