SOURCE: Renan, Ernest. “Feuerbach and the New Hegelian School.” In Studies of Religious History and Criticism, translated by O. B. Frothingham, pp. 331-41. New York: Carleton, 1864.

In the following essay, Renan finds fault with Feuerbach's view of Christianity.

Every considerable movement on the field of human opinions is worthy of interest even when we attach no great value to the mass of ideas that causes it. On this plea, the man who is devoted to critical researches cannot decline to notice the labours of the New Hegelian School on Christianity, although these labours do not always bear a strictly scientific character, and although the fancy of the humourist has often more share in them than the severe method of the historian.

The repugnance of the new German school to Christianity dates from Goethe, Pagan by nature, and especially by literary method. Goethe could have little relish for the...