“ Destined by his parents for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he studied theology at Munich, but felt an ever-growing attraction to philosophy. Nevertheless, after much hesitation, he took what he himself calls the most mistaken step of his life, and in 1847 entered the priesthood. His keenly logical intellect, and his impatience of authority where it clashed with his own convictions, quite unfitted him for that unquestioning obedience which the Church demanded. It was only after open defiance of the bishop of Regensburg that he obtained permission to continue his studies at Munich. ”

“ Undeterred by the offence which these works gave to his ecclesiastical superiors, he published in 1858 the Einleitung in die Philosophie und Grundriss der Metaphysik, in which he assailed the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, that philosophy was the handmaid of theology. In 1861 appeared Über die Aufgabe der Naturphilosophie und ihr Verhältnis zur Naturwissenschaft, which was, he declared, directed against the purely mechanical conception of the universe, and affirmed the necessity of a creative Power. ”

“ Meanwhile he had, in 1862, founded the Athenäum as the organ of Liberal Catholicism. For this he wrote the first adequate account in German of the Darwinian theory of natural selection, which drew a warm letter of appreciation from Darwin himself. ”