Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (/ˈfɔɪərbɑːx/;[4] German: [ˈluːtvɪç ˈfɔʏɐbax];[5][6] 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book The Essence of Christianity, which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced generations of later thinkers, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx,[7] Sigmund Freud,[8] Friedrich Engels,[9] Mikhail Bakunin,[10] Richard Wagner,[11] Frederick Douglass,[12] and Friedrich Nietzsche.

[14][16] Through the influence of Karl Daub he was led to an interest in the then predominant philosophy of Hegel and, in spite of his father's opposition, enrolled in the University of Berlin in 1824 in order to study under the master himself.

1877), he married in 1837 and lived a rural existence at Bruckberg near Nuremberg, supported by his wife's share in a small porcelain factory.

In two works of this period, Pierre Bayle (1838) and Philosophie und Christentum (1839), which deal largely with theology, he held that he had proven "that Christianity has in fact long vanished not only from the reason but from the life of mankind, that it is nothing more than a fixed idea.

"[citation needed] His most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums (1841), was translated by Mary Ann Evans (later known as George Eliot) into English as The Essence of Christianity.

In part II, he discusses the "false or theological essence of religion", i.e. the view which regards God as having a separate existence over against humankind.

A caustic criticism of Feuerbach was delivered in 1844 by Max Stirner in his book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Ego and His Own).

[18] During the troubles of 1848–1849 Feuerbach's attack upon orthodoxy made him something of a hero with the revolutionary party; but he never threw himself into the political movement, and indeed lacked the qualities of a popular leader.

In 1860 he was compelled by the failure of the porcelain factory to leave Bruckberg, and he would have suffered the extremity of want but for the assistance of friends supplemented by a public subscription.

After his second stroke incapacitated him in 1870, collections were made to aid his financial state, mainly through the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which he then joined the same year.

According to Mathilde Blind: Unlike his countrymen, whose writings on these subjects are usually enveloped in such an impenetrable mist that their most perilous ideas pass harmlessly over the heads of the multitude, Feuerbach, by his keen incisiveness of language and luminousness of exposition, was calculated to bring his meaning home to the average reader.

[20] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were strongly influenced by Feuerbach's atheism, although they criticised him for his inconsistent espousal of materialism.