If you simply condemn egoism, that is, self-love, then you must also condemn, consequently, the love
for others. Love is good will and good behaviour |
toward others, therefore, to recognize the just self-love of another. Why then will you geny for yourself what you acknowledge in others?
The diary demonstrates the many dimensions of Feuerbach's idea of love. Religion is an illusion, but it holds concrete knowledge about the nature of human beings. Love unifies being and thought, but love for self turns out to be a crucial aspect of a love for neighbour, which can disclose what human being is about. Belief is a necessary, if somewhat irrational, activity of rational being; without believing that love is possible, one does not love. Experience of the depths of human feeling is necessary for the philosopher to authentically philosophize. Love is essentially irrational, yet it is a key to rational knowledge, as through love for others knowledge about oneself is disclosed. Love is "the life of life" and thereby intimately related to the common human experience of suffering; yet each existent being is urged toward its own happiness, upon which the happiness of others may depend. The intensity of love in this world indicates that human existence is fulfilled in this world; yet there is a transcendence of consciousness and of love which appeals beyond this world. Christ is the manifestation of human images, but appears to disclose in some concrete way the idea of a feeling, suffering, loving God. Yet such a God is inconsis tent with the 'impassive' and 'infinite' being who demands the whole of human love.
Almost every extract from Feuerbach's diary is a two-sided, dialectical observation. Although Feuerbach himself came to doubt the universality of dialectic, especially when applied to history, the above reflections imply the inherent dialectic in his method. The diary shows the depth of Feuerbach's conviction that love is the highest attribute of human being. Not evident, yet, is the
role that the imagination plays in the synthesis of polarities with which love in its complexity is involved. But Feuerbach, if still a "Hegelian" in 1836, is already well on his way to a dialectical opposition, or perhaps a continuation, of Hegel's ideas. The next step in our enquiry is to examine, briefly, what Hegel had to say. 4. Early Hegel and Later Feuerbach
(1) Theory of the Young Hegel's Influence on Feuerbach
Hegel died in 1831. In the years immediately after his death some of his friends and students began to collate his lectures, unpublished manuscripts, and memorabilia. The resulting compilation of works gave rise to a Hegelian 'school' which divided into left, right, and centre interpretations.^ But the collected works were edited in such a way that some of the early manuscripts of Hegel were omitted. Copies of these early manuscripts, or at least much of their content, were circulated among certain of Hegel's students and followers who noted a distinct difference in the political and religious implications of these early writings, from the speculative, synthesizing system of Hegel's later published works. That group which considered Hegel's early manuscripts to be of great importance was known as "the Young Hegelians", and their name may well be directly
2
associated with the 'young Hegel', who wrote before 1800. For some very good reasons, Feuerbach was hailed as their spokesman.
1. David McLellan, The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx, op. cit. pp. 1-4
2. Hegel first began to develop his "system" in 1801. His Early Theological Writings were not published in German until edited by Nohl in 1907, not in English until T.M. Knox's translation in 1948. My interpretation is not supported by McLellan (or anyone else that I know of). I assume that the Early Writings were suppressed (1) because they were not part of Hegel's final "system"; (2) because they gave support to a radical inter pretation of Hegel, which would have perhaps led to government censure* (3) because they disagreed, at any rate, with the theology of Hegel's editors. McLellan offers no exp lanation for the name "Young Hegelians". So far as I know, Feuerbach has never before been associated with ,the writings of "Young Hegel", certainly not to the extent that I suggest. This section assumes that Feuerbach had before him either the manuscripts, or the content, of Hegel's Early Theological Writings, cf. Herman Nohl, Hegels theolo- gische Jugendschriften, Tubingen, 1907; T.M. Knox (trans.) Hegel; Early Theological Writings, University of Chicago Press, 1948; Pennsylvania Paperback, University of
Feuerbach asserted (before Marx) that Hegel, found to be stand- f
1
ing on his head, must be turned right side up. This suggestion
may well be a reference to Hegel's development, who in his early years began his philosophy with a critique of Christianity, based upon imagination and the progress (not dialectic) of human feeling
in religion. But Hegel began to subordinate the development of
basic human needs to a comprehensive idea of reason. In late 1800 Hegel wrote to Schelling:
In my scientific development which began with the more subordinate needs of man, I was compelled to proceed toward science (philosophy), and at the same time the ideal of my youth had to be transformed into the form of reflection, into a system.
This letter, in Feuerbach's view, would be the beginning of
Hegel's self-inversion. "The ideal of my youth", in Hegel's words,
appears to be none other that the concept of love expressed through Christianity. Hegel's essay, written in 1798-1799, entitled (by Nohl?) "The Spirit of Christianity" traces the idea of love through the life of Christ and its abortive, tragic eclipse in the early Church. "The Positivity of the Christian Religion", written in 1795-6, shows how the progress of human feeling develops through religion, how paganism is conquered by Christianity, only to be objectified again in dogmatic beliefs.
There is little chance that Feuerbach can have been ignorant of these writings. Many of Hegel's early themes are developed by Feuerbach: for example, the work of the imagination in miracles,
the objectification of human and natural material in the sacraments, % the opposition between faith and love, the self-identification of
human nature in the act of loving. Feuerbach, in his books Das Wesen des Christentums, Das Wesen der Religion, Das Geheimnis des Opfers Oder der Mensch ist, was er isst, appears to be saying that
1, Louis Althusser, For Marx, p. 46 E.T. Ben'Brewsteri Mien>UaHè',’London, 1969 .
Althusser admirably documents the direct adaptations of Feuerbach's aphorisms by Marx. Included are references to Hegel standing on his head, the opium of the people, the transformation of religion into anthropology.