Ludwig Feuerbach

“ God is self-consciousness posited as an object, as a being; but inasmuch as he knows himself, thinks himself, he also thinks another than himself; for to know oneself is to distinguish oneself from another, whether this be a possible, merely conceptional, or a real being. Thus the world—at least the possibility, the idea of the world—is posited with consciousness, or rather conveyed in it. The Son, i.e., God thought by himself, objective to himself, the original reflection of God, the other God, is the principle of Creation. ”

“ Only where man has contact and friction with his fellow-man are wit and sagacity kindled; hence there is more wit in the town than in the country, more in great towns than in small ones. Only where man suns and warms himself in the proximity of man, arise feeling and imagination. Love, which requires mutuality, is the spring of poetry; and only where man communicates with man, only in speech, a social act, awakes reason. ”

“ The distinction of one being from another is self-evident, is already implied in their existence, is a palpable truth: they are two. But I first establish difference for thought when I discern it in one and the same being, when I unite it with the law of identity. Herein lies the ultimate truth of difference. The cosmogonic principle in God, reduced to its last elements, is nothing else than the act of thought in its simplest forms, made objective. If I remove difference from God, he gives me no material for thought; he ceases to be an object of thought ”

“ If, on the contrary, I abide by reason, I can only derive the world from its essence, its idea, i.e., one mode of its existence from another mode; in other words, I can derive the world only from itself. ”

“ God thinks himself, he is an object to himself; he distinguishes himself from himself. Hence this distinction, the world, arises only from a distinction of another kind, the external distinction from an internal one, the static distinction from a dynamic one,—from an act of distinction: thus I establish difference only through itself; i.e., it is an original concept, a ne plus ultra of my thought, a law, a necessity, a truth. The last distinction that I can think, is the distinction of a being from and in itself. ”

“ Hence, creation is nothing more than a formal act; for that which, before the creation, was an object of thought, of the understanding, is by creation simply made an object of sense, its ideal contents continuing the same; although it remains absolutely inexplicable how a real material thing can spring out of a pure thought. ”

“ It is the imagination alone by which man neutralizes the opposition between God and the world. All religious cosmogonies are products of the imagination. Every being, intermediate between God and the world, let it be defined how it may, is a being of the imagination. ”

“ In this point of view Hobbes correctly enough derives the understanding of man from his ears!
Reduced to abstract logical categories, the creative principle in God expresses nothing further than the tautological proposition: the different can only proceed from a principle of difference, not from a simple being. However the Christian philosophers and theologians insisted on the creation of the world out of nothing, they were unable altogether to evade the old axiom—“Nothing comes from nothing,” because it expresses a law of thought. ”

“ In isolation human power is limited, in combination it is infinite. The knowledge of a single man is limited, but reason, science, is unlimited, for it is a common act of mankind; and it is so, not only because innumerable men co-operate in the construction of science, but also in the more profound sense, that the scientific genius of a particular age comprehends in itself the thinking powers of the preceding age, though it modifies them in accordance with its own special character. ”

“ I must introduce, prelude, moderate this contradiction by the consciousness of a being who is indeed another, and in so far gives me the perception of my limitation, but in such a way as at the same time to affirm my own nature, make my nature objective to me. ”

“ The common people, i.e., people in whom the power of abstraction has not been developed, are still incapable of understanding what is written if they do not read it audibly, if they do not pronounce what they read. ”

“ It is not until man has reached an advanced stage of culture that he can double himself, so as to play the part of another within himself. To think and to speak are therefore with all ancient and sensuous nations, identical ”